The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
The Department of Public Works and Highways promised to complete the 5 kilometers missing gap at Zambales Section of the 81 kilometers Capas (Tarlac Province) -Botolan (Zambales Province) Road this November.
DPWH Secretary Mark A. Villar tagged the Capas-Botolan Road Project to be Zambales best marketing as an ideal locale for various adventures and tourism activities.
Funded under the CY 2016 and 2017 Infrastructure Program in the amount of P138.413 million and P129.615 million, respectively, the road upgrading project involves concrete paving of carriageway with a thickness of 11 inches (0.28 meter), 2.5 meters shoulder on both sides, construction of stone masonry wall with line canal on mountain side which serves as slope protection and drainage, and provision of metal beam guardrail on the cliff side for road safety.
The improvement of this road network is expected to generate more tourists from Zambales to Tarlac and vice versa since tourist spots in both provinces of Central Luzon will become accessible from Botolan to Capas and vice versa.
Capas – Botolan Road will not only establish a link from Tarlac to Zambales but will also reduce the present three hour travel time via Bataan and Pampanga.
Before the implementation of the project, motorists either have to pass by the Provinces of Pampanga, Bataan, and as far as Pangasinan since rugged or mountainous terrain separates the two provinces.
Other than the ecotourism potential, Capas-Botolan Road will connect Zambales to the economic hubs in Tarlac and Pampanga where the state-owned Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) under the build, build, build initiatives of the government is building up an extension of Pampanga’s Clark Special Economic Zone with the Clark Green City Project in Tarlac, seen to become the focal point of economic development in the country within the next few years, Villar said.
The 9,450-hectare development that is expected to be bigger than Bonifacio Global City in the heart of Central Luzon is now in full swing with road works crucial to the on-going Clark Green City project.