The French government is reportedly offering to fund the Department of Transportation’s long-planned program of a cable-car system for Metro Manila, according to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez.
THE Department of Finance (DOF) has announced that the French government has offered a “highly concessional loan” to fund a cable car transport system in Metro Manila.
Secretary Carlos Dominguez III and French Ambassador to the Philippines Michèle Boccoz was said to have met virtually to discuss the proposed $100-million Manila Urban Car Cable Project of the Department of Transportation (DOTr).
According to the Finance Department the project is already up for approval by the Investment Coordination Committee (ICC), chaired by Dominguez.
The project is designed to be a 4.5-kilomoter monocable detachable gondola lift system in the Santolan-Eastwood-Pasig area.
It will run between Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 2’s Santolan Station in Marikina City and Barangay Rosario in Pasig City, connecting Santolan Station to Ortigas Avenue.
Back in 2018, the French government granted the Philippine €450,000 for a feasibility study for the cable car system.
In an interview with ABS-CBN in 2019, an official of the Asian Development Bank said that the cable car system is a feasible transport system in the Metropolis.
Jamie Leather, ADB Transport Sector Chief, pointed out that building cable cars will not require large tracks of land and are faster to construct over other transit systems.
"If you build a cable car you don't have to build on the entire thing. You're just putting 2 or 3 pillars, and the entire thing can travel over," Leather said.
He also said that cable cars make sense for parts of Metro Manila prone to flooding.
In the same year, DOTr officials revealed that they are studying to build it a cable car in Metro Manila with its stations mostly traversing the Marikina River.
Concerns were raised, however, given that the country is prone to strong typhoons.
In response, cable car designer Jim Fletcher said, "They can be built for whatever survival wind is prevalent in the area where they are being constructed. In a typhoon area, we would design the structures and provide mechanisms to tie the cable down when a typhoon came along."
Tags: #cablecar, #MetroManila, #transportation, #DepartmentofTransportation