As the issue on the Pasig River Expressway heats up, there are so many opinions, facts and data that have been presented to the public as to why PAREX, as it is called, is a terrible idea for the nation. The environmental impact it will have on Pasig River, the urban blight, the increased heat and pollutants motor vehicles will spew onto Pasig River, the added congestion and increased flooding potential it may cause once constructed, and so on.
The Pasig River Expressway is a proposed privately funded toll-road project by the country’s leading infrastructure developer and also the largest conglomerate, San Miguel Corporation. It is a 19.37-kilometer expressway to be built along the shoreline of the Pasig River, connecting the Metropolis via an East-West corridor that should help free up traffic particularly on Ortigas Avenue, EDSA and Shaw Blvd. With a total project cost of P95 billion, PAREX will help ease access to areas such as Radial Road-10 in Manila, the University Belt, Plaza Azul, Buendia, Mandaluyong, Makati-Rockwell, EDSA, Pioneer St., Bonifacio Global City, C5 and C6. PAREX will also connect to Skyway Stage 3. PAREX will also connect to the future proposed C6 Expressway Extension in the east going towards Batasang Pambansa in Quezon City, and to the future planned extension of Radial Road 10 that will lead to the New Manila International Airport. PAREX is in fact, part of the original Radial Road System, initially called Radial Road 4 or R4. PAREX itself was a national government prerequisite for the conglomerate’s new international airport project that will help ease travel from the Metro to the province of Bulacan.
End to end, travel time will be cut down to 20 minutes thereabouts, while today, it will take you easily 3 hours to go from Taytay, Rizal, to Radial Road 10 area beside Manila Bay, if not more, during rush hour. Based on the United State’s Environmental Protection Agency Standards, SMC projects Co2 emissions to reach 4.75 Million tons daily by 2035 in Metro Manila alone. PAREX will help lower that figure by almost 200,000 tons daily.
At its widest, SMC claims that Pasig River is 200 meters wide, and only 40 meters at its narrowest on Section 3 between C5 and C6. PAREX will take up no more than 20 meters from the river’s total width. SMC has already pledged separately to help clean up Pasig river to the tune of P2 billion, with the goal of removing three million metric tons of silt and solid waste from Pasig River to help widen and deepen it, mitigating flooding during the rainy season and help revive the almost completely ecologically dead waterway back to life. And SMC has pledged to maintain Pasig River for the next 30 years as well. SMC claims the project will benefit not just the 3.3 million people living in the province of Rizal, but will help spur growth in the region that has been left behind by other provinces with better infrastructure connecting to the country’s capital.
Though SMC has yet to release more detailed statistics, PAREX should have the capacity comparable to Skyway Stage 3, allowing roughly 60,000 private vehicles to pass through on a daily basis, decongesting and unburdening the existing road network which will allow government to repair and improve our existing overburdened road network system without causing even more delays for motorists. PAREX will not just be for private vehicles too: SMC claims that there will be a bus rapid transit component, ample bicycle lanes and pedestrian walkways as well to help move even more people and give PAREX users a choice of whether they want to drive their own cars, ride on public transport or walk for shorter distances. Initial estimate for construction is that PAREX will be finished much sooner than Skyway Stage 3 (roughly three years from actual ground-breaking) because of no major right of way issues and re-positioning of other utilities. It will generate 1,000 direct labor jobs in its initial construction stage, and a potential for as much as 200,000 jobs it will generate indirectly as economic growth is jump-started in the region.
PAREX itself is not perfect, nor is it a final solution. But it is a positive step in the right direction, according to SMC to help alleviate traffic. And it is of no direct cost to the tax payer, and will greatly benefit students living in Rizal who study in the U-Belt area, as well as professionals working in the various CBD’s PAREX will straddle in its path. It will help decentralize Metro Manila further and decongest our already overly-crowded city, giving everyone much needed breathing room, help improve and stabilize real-property prices in areas that PAREX will provide easy access to, and ultimately help the average person who has to endure the crazy traffic from Rizal to live his or her life, have a better overall quality of life. Unless you have a solution that is realistic, workable and implementable in three plus years and doesn’t require too many pre-requisites, sub-systems and eco-systems to be developed before the main project can be implemented, and at a cost comparable to PAREX’s P95 billion, I’d love to hear it. And of course, it has to be economically viable for San Miguel Corporation, so that they, and other conglomerates will continue to invest in our country.
