ANGELES CITY – Motorists heaved a sigh of relief and rejoiced here Tuesday with the opening of the newly-widened Friendship Bridge along the Circumferential Road West in Barangay Anunas.
The old two-lane bridge had for long a traffic trap especially during rush hours as it crosses to Koreatown and onto the Clark Freeport.
“The new Friendship bridge is the solution to bottleneck traffic situation caused by the existing bridge in as much as the load section before and after the bridge had been widened,” Public Works and Highways Secretary Mark Villar said.
He led the ceremonial drive-through and inauguration rites to mark the official opening of the bridge constructed under the national government’s “Build, Build, Build” program.
Villar underscored the impact of the bridge widening to the further “bustle of business” and development in the immediate areas accessed through it, primarily the Clark Freeport Zone, the cities of Angeles and San Fernando and the towns of Bacolor and Porac.
The Korean community has also expressed their gratitude to the Duterte administration for the new bridge, the center of their businesses being right where it crosses.
“We are most happy, no more traffic here,” a South Korean businessman who asked that he be identified only as “Kim” said.
For the past few days, motorists seeing the bridge completed wondered what took it so long to open it.
“The concrete pavement took two weeks of waterproof curing,” explained DPWH Region III director Roseller Tolentino, adding that the project included the construction of additional two lanes and road-widening, as well as maintenance work such as repainting using anti-corrosion paint on metal structures and repair of cracks on the old bridge.
“We constructed new bridge and approach with a total net length of 618 meters, and an additional bridge with a length of 240.8 linear meters, two lanes RCDG on bored pile foundation and approaches,” Tolentino said.
The bridge also has provision for concrete slope protection for approaches and abutments and safety devices such as concrete railings, hazard markers (chevron signs) and pavement markings, he said.
– with PR
