Consortium keeps hopes up for monorail approval

CEBU, Philippines — Philtram Transportation Consortium Inc., remains hopeful the government will approve its unsolicited proposal to build a monorail mass transport in Cebu.

Speaking at the Innovation Summit yesterday, Philtram founder and COO Jose Guardo said the company is looking submit this month its unsolicited proposal on the project to the Department of Transportation.

Guardo also urged the business community to back this project which is expected to solve Cebu’s worsening traffic problem. 

"We really hope the government will accept our proposal. We also urged the business sector (the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry) to support this mass transport project," he said.

He said the company is determined to complete the project in two years time considering everything goes according to plan and that the government hastens its approval.

The project's feasibility study is done by French-run Systra Philippines.

Initially, the 16.5-kilometer monorail is being eyed to start at Citta Di Mare at the South Road Properties, then to SM Seaside City, to Mambaling Access Road, to Natalio Bacalso Avenue, to Katipunan area, to P. del Rosario Street, to Zapatera, to Robinsons Galleria, to SM City Cebu, to Mandaue City, to Parkmall, to San Miguel area, to Maguikay, to Pacific Mall.

The project cost was pegged at roughly P50 billion or US$1 billion.

Once the company gets approval after submission of unsolicited proposal, the project's detailed engineering and design, to be undertaken by China Railway Engineering Corp (CREC) subsidiary China Railway Engineering Consulting Group (CEC), will then follow.

If everything goes according to plan, he said Cebuanos will start to enjoy the mass transport system by 2021 as it will only take two years for the project's civil works, installation of signalling system, and the test runs for the rolling stocks, among others.

A monorail is a railway system in which the track consists of a single rail, typically elevated and with the trains suspended from it. The term is also used to describe the beam of the system, or the vehicles traveling on such a beam or track. Many monorails run on elevated tracks through crowded areas that would otherwise require the construction of expensive underground lines or have the disadvantages of surface lines.

In May last year, the Cebu City government had signed a memorandum of understanding with the firm for the conduct of a business case study for the monorail system here.

Under the MOU, the business case study will involve analyses of present or future trip generation/distribution; probable alignments; ridership levels and fares; preliminary design; related cost estimates; project viability assessment; and formulation of implementation plans; and project financing, among others.