A former Chairman of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA), Felicito Payumo has come up this great idea calling it as the Trans Manila Bay Crossing, which he planned and contributed in 1987 on his first term as a Bataan congressman.
Upon realizing that there was not any more land left to have new streets or extend the mass travel system, Payumo decided to revive and push the bridge project.
Payumo said “the Trans Manila Bay Crossing poses no right of way issue. It will not only push growth outside of Metro Manila but will also connect three regions with close to 40 percent of the population and with gross domestic product (GDP) exceeding 50 percent of our total GDP.”
He said, the combination of bridge and tunnel project will connect a network of existing and integrated roads on the north and south of Metro Manila that will set as a complete network of the entire road loop or a “Big Loop.”
Linking these road loops are the Roman Highway in Bataan, the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway, the North Luzon Expressway, the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway, the Skyway Connector Road of the north and south expressways, the Skyway, the South Luzon Expressway, the Manila-Cavite Expressway the Southern Tagalog Arterial Road. and soon, will include the planned Cavite-Laguna-Expressway leads to Quezon province and the Bicol region.
According to Payumo’s e-mailed letter, calculating what will be the advantages and benefits of the said project, It said that “If there are 18 million trips each day by 13 million inhabitants in Metro Manila, add to this the pass-through trips from Southern Luzon to Central and northern Luzon and vice versa, then we know why traffic crawls on Edsa (Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue).
There is only one arterial road that connects Southern Luzon to Central Luzon through Metro Manila, and that is Edsa. This pass-through traffic should not go through Metro Manila if the Cavite-Corregidor-Bataan connection is constructed.”