THE regional office of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH)-Davao Region said the Davao River Bridge along Diversion Road in Buhangin is expected to be completed by June 2017.
DPWH Davao information officer Dean Ortiz, in an interview with VoxPop Davao, said the bridge component, earmarked at P158.5 million is one of the major undertakings aimed to decongest the worsening traffic congestion in the metro.
He said the bridge is now 56 percent finished. The closure of this bridge has been causing a major traffic pileup.
Among the other road projects to be accomplished this year include the Toril-Bangkal-Talomo-Puan bypass road, which is 70.1 percent completion.
The bypass road will cross the Davao-Bukidnon Highway just above Ulas at a point where the new San Pedro College site and the Maligaya Subdivision are located.
It will continue southward to connect to the old Davao-Cotabato road in Puan.
“For the bypass project, we are currently in the construction phase of the Talomo Bridge 3,” Ortiz said.
The Talomo-Puan bypass road lagged behind its schedule for completion due to Road-Right-of-Way issues.
“We had to redesign the whole Talomo-Puan road extension project last year,” he said.
Ortiz said it took them eight months to restructure everything. He added that hopefully this year, things will turn out well for the projects.
The Bypass road extension commenced construction last May 2015 while the bridge component started last year.
“This year, we have 663 projects for Region 11 (Davao Region). Of it, 531 are designated to be in Davao City,” Ortiz shared.
DPWH reported a total of P7.64 billion budget to be allocated for Davao City in 2017.
