Deal inked for three metro subway stations
Credit to Author: LISBET K. ESMAEL| Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 16:21:22 +0000
The multibillion-peso Metro Manila Subway project has taken another step forward with the signing of a design and build contract for the first stations that are expected to operational in three years.
The deal for the “partial operability section”, the Transportation department announced on Sunday, was inked with a joint venture composed of Japan’s Shimizu Corp., Fujita Corp., Takenaka Civil Engineering Co., Ltd., and homegrown EEI Corp.
The signatories were Transportation Undersecretary Reinier Paul Yebra and Shimuzu Corp. Manila branch manager Makoto Fujii.
The joint venture will be responsible for the design and construction of the Quirino Highway, Tandang Sora, and North Avenue stations, which are expected to be partially running by 2022, as well as tunnel structures, the subway’s Valenzuela depot, and the building and facilities for the planned Philippine Railway Institute.
Full operations of the 15-station, 36-kilometer subway — one of the Duterte administration’s flagship ‘Build Build Build’ projects — have been targeted for 2025, three years after the current government steps down.
Announcement of the contract’s signing followed last week’s high-level infrastructure and economic cooperation meeting in Osaka between Japanese and Philippine officials.
With groundbreaking for the Metro Manila Subway scheduled this Wednesday, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade said “our country will finally see that the dream of a railway system running underground in this country is soon becoming a reality.”
“Of course there will be some inconvenience along the way, but that is nothing to the long-lasting comfort this project will bring to the Filipino people,” he was quoted as saying in the Transportation department statement.
The department also said that Japanese Ambassador Koji Haneda, who was present during the high-level meeting, said the contract highlighted the strong cooperation between Japan and the Philippines.
The first of several loan agreements that will fund the subway’s construction was inked in March last year by the government and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
JICA country representative Yoshio Wada, who was also present in Osaka, was quoted as saying that Japan “appreciate[d] the fact that our
Japanese technology will be utilized and make [the] Filipino people’s life better by mitigating congestion in the city with safe and punctual Japanese railway culture”.
In Japan, Tugade was said to have inspected tunnel boring machines, subway flood control equipment and other Japanese technological achievements and practices.
Once fully operational, the Metro Manila Subway is expected to handle an initial 370,000 passengers per day with a maximum capacity of 1.5 million daily riders.
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