The Public Works Department announced the formal opening of the Rosario Toll Plaza, representing the final phase of the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway project, by April this year.
“We’re scheduled for April opening from Pozorrubio to Rosario, La Union”•an 11-kilometer segment of TPLEX,” Public Works Secretary Mark Villar said.
“This is the final segment of the TPLEx,” he said.
Villar said the toll from Pozorrubio to Rosario, La Union would be around P40 to P50.
The DPWH temporarily opened in January the Sison-Rosario segment”•a 4-kilometer road which cut the travel time to Baguio by up to 30 minutes and eased the traffic bottleneck along Manila North Road towards Kennon Road.
San Miguel-led Private Infra Dev Corp. holds the concession for TPLEX, an 88.85-km, four-lane, high-speed toll road that connects Northern Luzon to Manila. It is designed to integrate with other major toll roads such as North Luzon Expressway and Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway.
The construction of TPLEX began in 2010 in three phases. The first was completed in April 2014, running from Tarlac City to Carmen, Pangasinan. The second stretch from Carmen to Urdaneta was completed in December 2014. Its third section is from Urdaneta to Rosario, La Union.
A 59.4-km extension project is being planned from Rosario to Tubao, Naguilian and San Juan. The government granted an original proponent status to San Miguel Holdings Inc. after it offered to build the P23.95-billion TPLEX extension to San Juan.
San Miguel’s unsolicited project involves a 59.4-kilometer four-lane toll road from the exit of TPLEX in Rosario to San Juan.
The extension project would be divided into three segments, with the first segment spanning 18 km from Rosario to Tubao. The second segment will stretch 23 km from Tubao to Naguilian and the last segment will run 18.4 km from Naguilian to San Juan.
San Miguel said the project aimed to promote the development of Northern Luzon and facilitate connectivity to Central Luzon and Metro Manila through a high-speed and secured access.