THE DEPARTMENT of Transportation (DoTr) is seeking approval to adjust the project cost of Metro Rail Transit Line 4 (MRT-4) ahead of a possible loan signing this year.
The cost adjustment proposal will go before the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) following a shift from the originally proposed monorail format to a metro rail configuration.
“We are still targeting to have this approved by the ADB (Asian Development Bank) board as well as AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) board within the year… we need to get NEDA board re-approval right now,” Transportation Undersecretary Timothy John R. Batan said on the sidelines of a forum last week.
NEDA approval is required before major government projects can change scope or costing, Mr. Batan said.
He said the monorail configuration will have limited capacity.
“We saw that we need to change from monorail technology to conventional heavy metro rail technology,” he added.
Mr. Batan have no details about the magnitude of the cost change, which the DoTr has yet to finalize.
The move towards a greater-capacity solution followed a review of the passenger projections for the MRT-4 service area.
“We saw that demand was higher than expected for Eastern Metro Manila,” he added.
The MRT-4 will run 12.7 kilometers from the Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA)-Ortigas Ave. junction to Taytay, Rizal. It will have 10 stations.
Once operational, the MRT-4 is expected to serve more than 400,000 passengers daily, the DoTr has said.
In May, ADB said it is working on approving the proposed $1-billion loan to fund the construction of MRT-4, while AIIB said last year that the Philippines is seeking a loan of about $537.4 million from the Beijing-based bank. — Ashley Erika O. Jose
