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Sunday, November 20, 2005
Like Ouano, Gullas favors tunnel, not a third bridge
A THIRD connection between the island of Mactan and the Cebu mainland to reduce traffic congestion would have to be a tunnel, said Rep. Eduardo Gullas.
It’s the same idea Mandaue City Mayor Thadeo Ouano proposed, after the Mactan-Cebu Bridge Management Board raised the plan to put up a third bridge.
Gullas, former Cebu governor and ex-chairman of the Regional Development Council (RDC), said he “helped identify the third connection in the Cebu Master Plan of 1984.”
“It was not a bridge and not a ferry. It has to be tunnel and that would have to be constructed south of the first Mactan bridge, and somewhere between the cities of Talisay and Cebu, connecting to Mactan island,” Gullas told Sun.Star Cebu yesterday.
One-way traffic at certain hours of the day was tried on the first Mactan bridge starting last Monday. But it was scrapped after three days, when motorists and commuters protested because of the traffic gridlock.
The bridge board, instead, proposed a third bridge, an idea they hope to bring up before the RDC.
The Marcelo B. Fernan Bridge, which is the longest suspension bridge in the country, cost P2.2 billion to build and was completed in 1999. A loan from the Japanese Government financed the construction.
Gullas could not determine how much it would cost to build a tunnel since construction costs would have “tremendously changed because the proposal was made over two decades ago.”
Gullas (Cebu, 1st district) “agreed” with Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña that building a road and having a ferry cross the Mactan channel through Shell Island is cheaper than building a bridge or a tunnel.
However, this undertaking, he said, will only be possible if the Cordova reclamation project is finished.
“The Cordova reclamation is nowhere,” Gullas said.
Gullas and Osmeña are locked in a bitter fight over a portion of the South Reclamation Project. Gullas, who was then the Talisay City mayor, said 53.44 hectares of the reclaimed lot falls within Talisay’s jurisdiction.
Like Osmeña, Gullas said that building a third bridge requires a very high vertical clearance to accommodate foreign vessels. He said foreign vessels cannot cross the second Mactan bridge so they go around Mactan Island first.
Cebu City Planning and Development Officer Nigel Paul Villarete said building a bridge between Mactan and mainland Cebu would cost P18 billion. (Villarete, a trained urban planner, used to help evaluate projects when he worked with the National Economic Development Authority.)
Both Osmeña and Mandaue City Mayor Thadeo Ouano said a third bridge is no longer feasible. Osmeña finds a ferry good enough, while Ouano prefers a tunnel.
Ouano earlier said the tunnel as a link between mainland Cebu and Mactan may even boost tourism and spur economic activity. (GAC)
(November 20, 2005 issue)
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