BusinessWorld Online
August 24, 2011

CAGAYAN DE ORO — Plans to build a P500-million highway leading to the new Laguindingan international airport have been endorsed to the national government by a group of public and private sector officials in Northern Mindanao.
The interagency group, the Regional Development Council-Region 10, proposed a road interchange project consisting of a two-lane elevated highway with an estimated length of 1.5 kilometers, coordinator Jaime H. Pacampara said.

The road will include a 25-ton, 60-lineal-meter bridge, Mr. Pacampara said.

This should address traffic congestion prior to the airport’s opening which could be next year, he said.

Plans for another road said to be complementary to the airport, meanwhile, has moved forward after the Cagayan de Oro City council agreed to expropriate a private property lying in the highway’s path, Rep. Rufus B. Rodriguez (2nd district, Cagayan de Oro) said.

The P1.2-billion Cagayan de Oro Coastal Highway whose first phase runs from the Bitan-ag Creek in San Juan, Lapasan to Barangay Puerto is seen to be a four-lane concrete highway with a four-meter jaywalk.

It will ultimately link the Puerto flyover now under construction with the Puntod-Bonbon Third Bridge.

Intra-city traffic will have a bypass road through which they can quickly negotiate the city from east to west.

Emmanuel D. Abejuela, city council committee on infrastructure, said the city government would pay the property owner with the fair market value of his property.

He also committed to initiate an ordinance that would compel truck and bus operators to use the coastal superhighway when traveling through the city from points outside it.

These proposed highways come on top of other plans to improve roads in the region.

Cagayan de Oro is also looking to complete by the end of this month the P363-million Puerto-Sayre flyover in Barangay Puerto at the junction of the Iligan-Cagayan-Butuan Road and the Sayre highway of Bukidnon.

Oscar Villanueva, President’s Bridge Program officer, said the 195-lineal-meter double-lane permanent flyover is part of the so-called Mega Bridges for Urban and Rural Development Project bankrolled by a loan from the French government.

District engineer Cesar L. Hipona, Jr. said the flyover is just one of a package of intercity projects intended to address the increasing traffic volume along the national highway, specifically along the Iligan-Cagayan-Butuan Road.

Two other flyovers are now under construction by the city government: the P107.8-million Velez-C.M. Recto flyover and P119.7-million Macanhan-Carmen junction flyover. — Michael D. Baños