BGC-Ortigas Center link to ease traffic across the Pasig

Officials on Wednesday inaugurated the construction of a P1.6-billion road project linking Ortigas Business Center in Pasig City and Bonifacio Global City (BGC) commercial district in Taguig City.

The BGC-Ortigas Center Link road project is designed to improve accessibility among the cities of Pasig, Taguig, Mandaluyong and Makati, Public Works Secretary Mark Villar said.

Once completed by March 2020, travel between the business districts of Pasig and commercial district of Taguig would take only 12 minutes, Villar said.

“Traffic congestion at Edsa and C-5 Road, particularly along Guadalupe Bridge and Bagong Ilog Bridge, will be alleviated by about 25 percent,” he said in a statement.

Villar, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, Bases Conversion and Development Authority president Vivencio Dizon, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority chair Danilo Lim, and Taguig Mayor Maria Laarni Cayetano led the laying of a capsule during the groundbreaking ceremony at BGC, ushering the start of the BGC-Ortigas Center Link road project.

The 961.427-lineal-meter road project involves the construction of a four-lane bridge across the Pasig River connecting Lawton Avenue in Makati and Sta. Monica Street in Pasig, and a viaduct structure traversing Lawton onward to the entrance of BGC.

The government has lined up the inauguration of other infrastructure projects under the administration’s “golden age of infrastructure” from 2017 to 2022.

Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno had said a total of P8.4 trillion would be spent for infrastructure during the six-year  administration.

Other than the Sta. Monica-Lawton Bridge component of the BGC-Ortigas Center Link road project, also up for construction are 12 new bridges crossing the Pasig-Marikina River and the Manggahan Floodway.

These are designed to boost the capacity of road networks in the metropolis.

Two more bridges — the Binondo-Intramuros and Estrella-Pantaleon Bridges in Manila and Makati/Mandaluyong — will be constructed under a Chinese grant.

Other planned bridges are the North and South Habor Bridge, 2nd Ayala Bridge (Carlos Palanca-San Marcelino), Beata-F.Y. Manalo Bridge (Pandacan-Sta. Ana), F. Blumentritt-Antipolo Bridge, Kabayani-Katipunan Bridge, Reposo-Guatemala Bridge, J.P. Rizal-Yale Bridge, G. Gabriel St.-Mercury Ave. Bridge, East Bank-West Bank Bridge 1, and East Bank-West Bank Bridge 2.