The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) is eyeing a $1.95 billion loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to finance the construction of the Bataan-Cavite Interlink Bridge (BCIB) Project.
The agency expects to obtain loan approval from the ADB for the project around November this year.
ADB and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) earlier committed to co-finance the civil works construction of Bataan-Cavite Interlink Bridge project targeted to start in 2024.
The BCIB is divided into seven contract packages with the construction to begin inititally in the two on-land packages: Package 1 which relates to the five-kilometer Bataan Land Approach and Package 2 which is the 1.35-kilometer Cavite Land Approach.
Packages 3 and 4 relate to the marine viaducts in the North and South with a total length of 20.65 kilometers.
Packages 5 and 6 are the North and South Channel Bridges with a length of 2.15 and 3.15 kilometers, respectively. The 7th package involves a project-wide ancillary works.
The BCIB project will provide a permanent road link between the provinces of Bataan and Cavite, the key missing link in the road network of the NCR, Central Luzon and Calabarzon regions.
The project is about 32 kilometers long, comprising two cable-stayed bridges with the main spans of 900 and 400 meters for navigation channels, 24 kilometers of marine and land viaducts, and 5 kilometers of approach roads.
The BCIB will serve as alternative route from north Luzon to south Luzon without traveling through the heavy congested roadways of the NCR, and thus reduce the pressure on the existing north-south corridors.
In case of a natural calamities, the BCIB may serve as main evacuation route for the people of Bataan, Cavite, Rizal and south NCR.
The feasibility study for the BCIB Project was completed under the ADBs Infrastructure Preparation and Innovation Facility (IPIF) in 2019, in which the preliminary architectural and engineering design had been prepared.
Once the bridge is completed, travel time between the provinces of Bataan and Cavite will be reduced from the current 5 1⁄2 hours to just about 45 minutes, saving more than 4 hours travel time and benefitting thousands of commuters.
