TPLEx contractors build underpass to make up for lost farm road

VILLASIS, Pangasinan—Contractors building the stretch of the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEx) leading to Urdaneta City have constructed an underpass for a village that protested the loss of its farm-to-market road.

The compromise has helped expedite the project’s completion, in time for a scheduled December opening.

In October, farmers of Barangay (village) Lipay objected when the expressway crossed their farm road, which had denied them easy access to the Villasis-Asingan national road in Barangay San Blas. The national road leads straight to the town center.

Last week, TPLEx contractors informed the Lipay residents that they began constructing an underpass beside TPLEx to open a new route to the town market, said Andres Borja, one of the residents.

“They told us that the tunnel will be 4.2 meters high and 2.1 meters wide,” said Borja.

He said it wasn’t the best option for the farmers. “That’s barely enough for tricycles and small cars to pass through. But how about vans and bigger vehicles? We had wanted a wider passageway. Anyway, this is better than closing the road,” he said.

Eustaquio Reotutar, a former village council member, complained that the tunnel was designed as a spillway.

Construction of this TPLEx section that links Rosales town to Urdaneta City has been in full swing since September, following the completion of a viaduct across the Agno River.

TPLEx officials announced that the Urdaneta City exit of the expressway would open in December. When completed, the expressway will stretch to Rosario town, La Union province. Travel time from Balintawak to Rosario will be only two hours, said Mark Dumol, president of Private Infrastructure Development Corp., a subsidiary of San Miguel Corp.

He said TPLEx cost about P24 billion. The government shouldered P3 billion in building TPLEx’s last stretch, from Urdaneta to La Union, which Dumol described as commercially not viable.

“That [stretch] has light traffic. The government asked us to build it but they will give us a subsidy for that,” he said.–Gabriel Cardinoza, Inquirer Northern Luzon