Commonwealth Avenue, formerly known as Don Mariano Marcos Avenue, named after the father of President Ferdinand Marcos, is a highway located in Quezon City, Philippines, which spans from 6 to 18 lanes and is the widest in the Philippines. It is one of the major roads in Metro Manila and is designated as part of Radial Road 7 of the older Manila arterial road system and National Route 170 of the Philippine highway network. Commonwealth Avenue starts from the Quezon Memorial Circle inside the Elliptical Road, and it passes through the areas of Philcoa, Tandang Sora, Balara, Batasan Hills and ends at Quirino Highway in the Novaliches area. The avenue, being located on Quezon City, which is listed as one of several cities in Metro Manila with high incidence of road accidents, has a high rate of accidents, especially related to overspeeding, and has gained the nickname Killer Highway. A speed limit is enforced to reduce the high rate of accidents on the avenue, which actually has a design speed of 150 km/h.
Route description
Commonwealth Avenue follows a curving route from Elliptical Road to Quirino Highway, which includes the section named Fairview Avenue. The main segment, south of the roundabout with Doña Carmen Street, is characterized by partial control of access, where at-grade intersections are replaced with interchanges and U-turn slots, and pedestrian crossings placed on overpasses. The segment has 18 lanes, with 9 lanes per direction, excluding lanes allocated for buses and jeepneys. Fairview Avenue has 6 to 8 lanes, with 3 to 4 lanes per direction, but intersections are mostly at-grade, usually with traffic lights. Being located in Quezon City, which has a high number of road accidents, Commonwealth Avenue has a high incidence of accidents along with Quezon Avenue. The number of accidents in the avenue have lend its known nickname, the "Killer Highway".
The Commonwealth Avenue is divided to two portions, the 6–8-lane Fairview Avenue and the 18-lane Don Mariano Marcos Avenue. The Don Mariano Avenue was constructed in the late-1960s as a two-lane highway to offer a route towards the Batasang Pambansa Complex. Quezon City was then the capital of the Philippines, and embassies were to be put up on the stretch of highway. Because the country's capital was moved back to Manila in 1976, other establishments were put up instead. The Don Mariano Marcos Avenue was later extended from the Elliptical Road to Calle España. The Don Mariano Marcos Avenue was later renamed into two parts, the Commonwealth Avenue and Quezon Avenue. Later Commonwealth Avenue regained the 8-lane Fairview Avenue, which ends in the Jordan Plains Subdivision in Novaliches. In the 1980s, the road was widened into a six-lane highway. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, the avenue was prone to heavy traffic and accidents due to the increase in number of public transportation vehicles plying the highway, and sidewalk vendors crowding onto the road. In the late 2000s, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority cleared the sidewalk vendors, especially in the Tandang Sora area, which was prone to heavy rush hour traffic. Fairview Avenue uses stoplights and center island splittings in its intersections, while the Don Mariano Marcos Avenue uses interchanges in its intersections. The avenue is 18 lanes at its widest, and is the widest road in the Philippines, beating the old record set by EDSA.
Linking to Quirino Highway
On October 1, 2009, Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte, Jr. announced his 15-year-old plan to link Commonwealth Avenue and Quirino Highway at the cost of ₱20 million to ₱140 million, which would be adjacent to Zabarte Road. The project was completed in May 2011 and is already operational.
60 km/h speed limit implementation
From May 2011, a speed limit is enforced on Commonwealth Avenue, following the death of Lourdes Estella-Simbulan, a journalist, on a road accident in the avenue. On the first week of the speed limit implementation, 120 violators are apprehended after speeds of over 60 km/h are recorded through speed guns.
The Central Temple of Iglesia ni Cristo is the main attraction along Commonwealth Avenue. The Iglesia ni Cristo is the largest entirely indigenous Christian religious organization that originated from the Philippines and the largest independent church in Asia. Aside from the Central Temple, two large chapels of the INC are also located in Commonwealth Avenue.
The Sandiganbayan
The Sandiganbayan is a special court in the Philippines which was established under Presidential Decree No. 1606. Its rank is equivalent to the Court of Appeals. The court consists of 14 Associate Justices and 1 Presiding Justice. The Sandiganbayan building is located at Centennial Building, Commonwealth Avenue cor. Batasan Road, Quezon City. The trials of former president Joseph Estrada were held there from 2001 to 2007.
New Era University
is an educational institution in the Philippines, run by the Iglesia ni Cristo. This university is one of the largest non-Catholic universities in the Philippines with approximately 30,000 students. Its main campus is in # 9 Central Avenue, New Era, Quezon City, in the Central Office Complex of the Iglesia ni Cristo. It has several branches around the Philippines, including one in San Fernando City, Pampanga, in Lipa City, Batangas and in General Santos City, South Cotabato.
The University of the Philippines Diliman, or U.P. Diliman, is the flagship campus of the University of the Philippines. It is located in Diliman, Quezon City. It offers courses in Liberal Arts, Social Sciences, Law, Business and Economics, Natural Sciences, Engineering, Music and Fine Arts among others. It offers the largest number of graduate and undergraduate courses among all the universities in the Philippines. In 2007, construction started on a 37.5-hectare technology park being developed by the Ayala Corporation inside the campus of the university near the avenue. The U.P.-Ayala Land TechnoHub now hosts multinational corporations such as Convergys, IBM, HSBC, and Manulife.
Quezon Memorial Circle
The Quezon Memorial Circle is a national park and shrine located in Quezon City, former capital of the Philippines. The park is an ellipse bounded by the Elliptical Road. The site was originally intended as the grounds of the National Capitol to be built in Quezon City. While the cornerstone for the structure was laid in 1940, only the foundations were in place when construction was interrupted by the beginning of the Second World War in the Philippines. After World War II, President Sergio Osmeña issued an executive order stipulating the creation of a Quezon Memorial Committee to raise funds by public subscription to erect a monument to his predecessor, President Manuel Luis Quezon. The height of monument stands at 66 meters, the same number as the age when Quezon died in 1944.
Shopping centers
There are a few shopping centers along the avenue. The first mall to open along the avenue is Ever Gotesco Commonwealth which services people along the Commonwealth, Diliman and Batasan areas. There are also two malls serving the Tandang Sora area: Puregold Tandang Sora on the southbound lane and Berkeley Square on the northbound lane. The U.P.–Ayala Land TechnoHub hosts amusement centers and restaurants, while a smaller mall, the Citimall, serves the Philcoa area near the University of the Philippines Diliman campus and caters mostly to commuters. Fairview Center Mall caters the Fairview area, while SM City Fairview and Robinsons Novaliches are in close proximity of the Jordan Plains terminus of the avenue. Last to be completed is Shopwise Commonwealth near Ever Gotesco. Puregold North Commonwealth was opened on the former site of the Fairview Wet & Dry Market. A Puregold Jr. branch was also opened beside the Diliman Preparatory School campus. A Convergys building along the Batasan area also hosts commercial centers.
Other buildings and structures
There are many schools located along the avenue: the National College of Business and Arts in Fairview, Our Lady of Mercy School, Diliman Preparatory School, and Lux Domine Academy which are located in the Batasan area. Also, car companies like Toyota, Kia Motors, Hyundai, Suzuki and Nissan have distributions in the avenue. There are also markets located along the road like the Commonwealth Market in Barangay Commonwealth. Also along the Fairview area is the La Mesa Dam which supplies water to Metro Manila.
St. Peter Parish: Shrine of Leaders
The St. Peter Parish is located in Commonwealth Avenue around Barangay Batasan Hills and was completed in 1999. It is a famous church in the Philippines as it is a replica of the original St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Italy or Vatican City.
