Cavitex Infrastructure Corp. on Friday said it expects to complete the P700-million road enhancement project at Manila-Cavite Expressway by July this year to increase the capacity of the expressway by 25 percent.
CIC said it invested about P400 million for the road widening of the MIAA-to-Zapote stretch as well as the Southbound Flyover on the intersection of Pacific Ave.
The company also spent about P300 million for the bridge widening at the Wawa, Las Piñas area.
“These enhancement projects started last year and were slated to finish by August 2018, but we will complete them within July 2018. On top of these, we are also adding 15 tollbooths—three on the northbound direction, two on the southbound direction and five portable booths each on the north and south sides of the Paranaque toll plaza,” Cavitex president and chief executive Luigi Bautista said.
“About 140,000 cars pass Cavitex at different periods of the day, and we would like each one of them to have a good experience to take with them after passing our expressway,” he added.
Public Works and Highways Mark Villar Secretary said several enhancement projects in Cavitex would improve travel time by around 20 to 30 minutes.
Cavitex is a subsidiary of Metro Pacific Tollways Corp., which also operates the North Luzon Expressway and the Subic Clark Tarlac Expressway.
Earlier, unit MPCala Holdings Inc. said expects to obtain the original proponent status for the P22.43-billion Cavite-Batangas Expressway this month.
The Public Works Department said the OPS letter for CTBex was set to be signed by Villar.
CTBex is a proposed 49-kilometer expressway that will connect Cavite and Batangas, with a spur road to Tagaytay City and ultimately terminating in Nasugbu, with another spur road to Tuy, Batangas.
Bautista said the CTBex project was expected to start construction by the first quarter of 2019.
Once completed, the project would cut travel time from Sta. Rosa, Laguna to Nasugbu, Batangas from 2.5 hours to just an hour. The project was targeted to be completed by the first half of 2022.
The project will start at Silang East Interchange of Cavite-Laguna Expressway. The alignment will traverse the towns of Silang, Amadeo, Mendez, Alfonso and Tagaytay in Cavite and Nasugbu in Batangas.