The Ortigas and Shaw Boulevard Stations of the P17.75-billion first phase of the Metro Manila Subway Project (MMSP) broke ground in a ceremonial program Monday, Oct. 3.
The Tokyu-Tobishima Megawide Joint Venture (TTM-JV) is constructing the two stations under Contract Package 104 (CP104) of the MMSP.
The MMSP, the country’s first underground railway system, has 17 stations from Valenzuela to Bicutan and covers 33 kilometers.
The Department of Transportation (DOTr) targets to partially start operations of the subway in 2025.
President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. and Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista led today's groundbreaking.
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The MMSP will be the crown jewel of the country’s mass transit infrastructure system after its completion, Secretary Bautista maintained.
“We are running at full speed on this project. We owe it to the commuting public,” he noted.
The subway, once operational, can accommodate more than 519,000 passengers a day. It will reduce travel time from Valenzuela to Bicutan to just 45 minutes.
The groundbreaking ceremony signals the closure of a portion of Meralco Avenue in Pasig City – from Capitol Commons to Shaw Boulevard – where traffic will be rerouted starting October 3, 2022 until year 2028 to give way for the construction.
The entire contract package is nearly 3.4 kilometers long with two stations connected by a 920.5-meter tunnel and extends further to 1.86-kilometer tunnels connecting Shaw Blvd to Kalayaan Avenue Station in Taguig City.
The MMSP is supported by loans from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
The tunnel will be formed using two huge tunnel boring machines (TBM) from Japan, using a technique called New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM).
Each TBM to be used in the project can excavate 300 to 500 cubic meters of soil daily and creates a tunnel 9 to 12 meters long daily, using rotating cutting wheels that can easily break up hard soil and rocks.
While the massive TBMs can significantly hasten the process of tunneling, above ground disruption will be kept to the minimum.