Tullahan Bridge partially closed on Monday

Valenzuela City Mayor Sherwin Gatchalian announced yesterday that the Tullahan Bridge straddling the Malabon-Valenzuela boundary on MacArthur Highway will be partially closed beginning 6 a.m. on Monday.

Gatchalian said the northbound lane of the bridge will be closed to give way to the construction of a pedestrian footbridge preparatory to the Tullahan Bridge’s demolition and the construction of a new one that will meet the current traffic load.

Roberto Darilag, city hall’s action center chief on top of the re-routing program, clarified that the southbound lane will remain open to traffic until the footbridge is completed in three or four days, citing contractors’ estimates.

The bridge will be fully closed to traffic on Friday next week while mobilization of heavy equipment has been set on the day before that, Darilag told The STAR.

The advisory was issued to enable the public to sufficiently adjust to the inconvenience that will be caused by the construction work, said Gatchalian.

Gatchalian is still waiting for the MMDA’s comment on his earlier proposal to postpone the bridge’s reconstruction for another two months to address problems that were exposed by the traffic detour dry run last Tuesday.

City hall sources, who declined to be named, have told The STAR it is unlikely that the DPWH and the MMDA, the lead agencies, would be swayed into setting back the long-delayed project. "They are already in too deep in the preparations and committed to finish it the soonest time possible," the source said.

Darilag said the new bridge will be raised by 2.5 meters from where it stands now.

Last Monday, traffic was snarled for several blocks when the 73-year-old bridge was closed to all vehicles at 6 in the morning for a dry run of a detour traffic scheme.

Vehicle queues stretched up to at least three kilometers on both the north and southbound lanes of MacArthur Highway and out to EDSA and sidestreets of Caloocan City near Monumento.