Commuters from the south welcomed the rendered images of the planned South Commuter Railway train stations which will cut travel time from Manila to Calamba, Laguna in half.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Thursday gave a sneak peek of what the stations will look like once it is operational.
The South Commuter Railway project is the firm’s largest infrastructure financing in the Asia and Pacific region so far.
The multilateral lender aims to support the capacity development and institutional strengthening of the Department of Transportation (DOTr), the implementing agency.
The ABD-financed infrastructure includes civil works for the railway viaduct, 18 stations, bridges, tunnels, and depot buildings. These will be designed to be disaster-resilient and able to withstand typhoons and earthquakes.
Meanwhile, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is funding the rolling stock and railway systems.
The 55-kilometer railway will connect Metro Manila to Laguna. It will halve the travel time from the city of Manila to Calamba City from the current 2.5 hours.
It will also feature a tunnel that would allow the operation of direct trains from Calamba to stations on the future Metro Manila Subway system.
Some of its stations are in EDSA, Buendia, Sucat and Santa Rosa in Laguna.
Here are some of its rendered views:
Filipinos welcomed the project, while some hoped the final product would be faithful to the images presented.
“Hopefully masunod ang architecural design, same sa Thailand and Malaysia at least… Government projects in the Philippines tend to downgrade proposed designs from the consultants..” a Facebook user claimed.
“Hopefully masunod ‘yung design. Normally, maganda ‘yung architectural design pero biglang nagbago ‘yung output. Pero let’s see, depende din ksi (kasi) ‘to sa contractor,” another Filipino claimed.
The South Commuter Railway project is one of the country’s infrastructure flagship projects and is part of the Duterte administration’s “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure development program.
This railway is part of the North-South Commuter Railway (NSCR) Network, which consists of three Philippine Nation Railways (NPR) projects: PNR Clark Phase 1 from Tutuban to Malolos, PNR Clark Phase 2 from Malolos to Clark and PNR Calamba from Solis to Calamba.
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