DOTr wants solicited bidding for PH's first cable car system

The Department of Transportation (DOTr) is planning to bid out to interested private sector groups the development as well as operations of its planned cable car system.

In a chance interview on Wednesday, Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista told reporters, “We want solicited [bidding] for the cable car [project].”

Last week, the DOTr announced its plan to put up the Antipolo Cable Car project, which would be the country’s first cable car system, that will connect the MRT-4 Taytay Station to Antipolo City.

Transportation Undersecretary Timothy John Batan earlier said the Asian Development Bank (ADB) funded the pre-feasibility study for the project, which was finished early this year.

The bank is also financing the cable car project’s detailed feasibility study, which will determine the project cost and passenger capacity.

The DOTr had said the detailed feasibility study is expected to begin in 2025. Project bidding, meanwhile, will open in the following year.

Bautista said that the feasibility study will take place ”one year.”

The Transportation chief said the DOTr will make sure that the feasibility study will ensure that the proposed cable car project will be “investment grade.”

In 2021, the Duterte administration reported that the proposed $100-million Manila Urban Car Cable Project of the DOTr was already up for approval by the Investment Coordination Committee (ICC).

Last December, the Quezon City government reported that a French company proposed the deployment of cable cars to ease traffic congestion. After its two-year study, the company found that it was feasible to establish a cable car corridor along the Marikina River, which straddles Marikina City, Quezon City, and Pasig City.

In Baguio City last June, Japan's Zip Infrastructure was set to study the feasibility of a cable car system in Camp John Hay, as part of an agreement inked with the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) which owns the property.

Senator Robinhood Padilla, meanwhile, recently suggested having cable cars to ease the traffic congestion in Metro Manila after his colleague Senator JV Ejercito called for the improvement of the mass transport system to address the country's persistent traffic woes. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News