The Department of Public Works and Highways expects to complete the construction of the Laguna side of the Cavite-Laguna Expressway Project by December this year.
“I am very happy with the progress of CALAx, we are expecting that the Laguna Segment will substantially be completed by December 2018. This segment spans from the Laguna Boulevard to Mamplasan, Binan and travel time will now be under 10 minutes,” DPWH Secretary Mark Villar said.
“Cutting travel time by half will bring ease of travel to about 7,300 vehicles daily that would normally travel 20 minutes from Laguna Boulevard to Mamplasan, Binan,” he added.
The Laguna segment, costing an estimated P10 billion, comprises seven kilometers of the 45-km stretch of the Calax costing P22 billion.
Villar said the agency already secured an Environmental Compliance Certificate from the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources for the Cavite side of the Calax project, which would pave the way for the construction of the project by third quarter of this year.
“We have already started the acquisition of right-of-way, as early as this year, we’ve identified the areas. We will be able to start the civil works this year,” he added.
“We are pleased that our project is moving as it should given the available construction areas turned over to us. We are also pleased that our project is able to create jobs in the surrounding towns and cities,” MPCALA Holdings Inc. president and chief executive Luigi Bautista said.
“As a socially responsible corporate citizen, we would like to add value with our presence, not just in terms of bringing solutions to the traffic congestion but as a source of livelihood for the province of Laguna and Cavite.”
“The Laguna segment has brought 820 jobs and estimated to increase to 1,200 as the construction progresses,” he added.
MPCala is a subsidiary of the Metro Pacific Tollways South Corp., a unit of Metro Pacific Tollways Corp., the infrastructure arm of Metro Pacific Investments Corp.
MPCala tapped DMCI Consunj Inc. to build the Laguna side of the project, and Leighton Holdings of Australia the construct the Cavite side.