Let’s hope it won’t take 25 years before the 4th Mandaue-Mactan Bridge is built.
The project is being endorsed for foreign funding by the Department of Economy Planning and Development. To be financed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica), the P76.4 billion bridge is supposed to start its civil works component by September 2025. According to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), completion will be on August 2030.
While supportive of the project, Lapu-Lapu City Lone Congressional District Representative Junard Chan and Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Cynthia King-Chan are objecting to having part of the M.L. Quezon Highway crossing from the Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA) as the bridge’s approach.
Instead, the Chans suggest that the approach should be at the proposed Mactan coastal road across the northeastern side of Mandaue City so that traffic will be dispersed away from the MCIA.
The proposal indeed sounds logical, considering the current traffic load of M.L. Quezon Highway. Aside from being the main road leading to and from the airport, the road has a nearby economic zone, malls, hotels, and business centers.
There are currently more than 100 companies employing 60,000 workers at the Mactan Economic Zone 1 alone. Even without the 4th bridge adding activities in that area yet, foot and vehicular traffic there is already significant and will predictably increase some more.
The DPWH should therefore go back to the drawing board on this portion of the project, whose design must be dictated by future demands rather than by present expediencies.
After all, it’s not as if Rep. Chan’s exhortation is new. When he was still the Lapu-Lapu City Mayor, he had already told DPWH officials about it.
Surely, we wouldn’t want to repeat the failure of the first bridge, which was designed for only two lanes. With a length of 846 meters and a width of 9 meters, the P64 million box-truss project indeed brought pride to the nation for being designed wholly by Filipinos. Inaugurated in 1973, the bridge would however, prove to be incapable of serving the rapidly-expanding economies of Cebu and Mactan in later years.
It took 25 years before the 2nd bridge came into the picture.
The Marcelo Fernan Bridge was inaugurated in 1998. Funded by Jica, the P1.1 project was aimed at improving connectivity between Cebu and Mactan. The 4-lane structure is 1.2 kilometers long, with an average traffic of some 30,000 to 40,000 vehicles daily. Envisioned to have 6 lanes, the project had to cut back on its design due to foreign loan currency fluctuations. Thus, the bridge would soon be saturated once more by heavier traffic.
It again took 25 years for the 3rd bridge to open.
Inaugurated in 2023, the P30 billion Cebu-Cordova Link Expressway was designed to further enhance connectivity between Cebu and Mactan through the Municipality of Cordova. A partnership project between the Metro Pacific Tollways Corporation and the local government units of Cordova and Cebu City, the bridge is 8.5 kilometers long, with multiple lanes designed for higher traffic volumes.
But planners still see a need for a 4th bridge.
Long story short, the DPWH must immediately redo its plans for this new bridge and incorporate the suggestions of Rep. Chan and Mayor Chan who have nothing but the interests of Lapu-Lapu City and the whole of Cebu in mind.
If not, DPWH will have to be blamed if it will again take 25 years before the 4th bridge comes to life.