Tarlac–Pangasinan–La Union Expressway


The Tarlac–Pangasinan–La Union Expressway is an four-lane expressway north of Manila, Philippines, which connects the Central Luzon region with the Ilocos Region. The expressway begins at the northern terminus of the Subic–Clark–Tarlac Expressway in Tarlac City, and ends at Rosario in La Union.
The first section of the project, from Tarlac City to Pura, Tarlac, had been operating on a "soft opening" basis since October 31, 2013, and was ready for full operation in November 2013.
Part of the second segment, which will take motorists up to Ramos, Tarlac, opened on December 23, 2013. The section from Anao, Tarlac up to Rosales, Pangasinan, opened in April 2014, while the remaining segment connecting Rosales to Urdaneta opened on December 20 of the same year.
The third segment of the expressway partially opened up to Binalonan in 2016 and Pozorrubio in 2017. The final section of the expressway from Pozorrubio to Rosario was opened to motorists on July 15, 2020.
Proposals have also been raised for extending the project all the way to Laoag in Ilocos Norte.
The TPLEX is an extension of the North Luzon Expressway and the Subic–Clark–Tarlac Expressway and is part of Expressway 1 of the Philippine expressway network.
The expressway crosses the three rivers within the province of Pangasinan. The rivers along the TPLEx area are Agno River, Binalonan River, and Bued River.

Route description

TPLEX follows a route that parallels the MacArthur Highway from Tarlac City in Tarlac to Pozorrubio in Pangasinan. The whole expressway has four lanes, with two lanes per direction, separated by Jersey barriers. Sections on the exits and their approaches are illuminated with street lights at night. Significant sections of the expressway are built on embankment overlooking rice paddy fields. The whole expressway is designated as part of Expressway 1 of the Department of Public Works and Highways Route Numbering System

Tarlac

The Tarlac–Pangasinan–La Union Expressway starts in Tarlac City as a physical extension of the Subic–Clark–Tarlac Expressway. The expressway passes through the municipalities of Victoria, Pura, Ramos, and Anao. Significant portions of the expressway in Tarlac are built on raised land or embankments, and existing roads cross through underpasses built on cuts on the embankment. The road enters Cuyapo in Nueva Ecija without any major junction, before entering Pangasinan, at the municipality of Rosales.

Pangasinan

The Pangasinan segment of TPLEX starts at the municipality of Rosales. The expressway then crosses through a viaduct over the Agno River. The road then enters Urdaneta, which is served by a single interchange that connects with MacArthur Highway. The Urdaneta exit served as the expressway's northern terminus until the extension to Binalonan opened. Past Urdaneta Exit, TPLEX crosses above the Manila North Road, then passes over Binalonan and Pozorrubio. The last exit within the province is Sison, which is still under construction and is not yet included in the opening of the main carriageway.

La Union

Past the Sison exit, the expressway then crosses through a viaduct over the Bued River. The road then enters the municipality of Rosario, where the main, northern toll plaza is located. Past the Rosario toll plaza is a spur road that connects to the Rosario rotunda. This is also the northern terminus of the expressway.

History

Conception and early development

Although calls for the creation of an expressway system that would stretch from the Philippine Capital of Manila all the way to Rosario, the southernmost town of the province of La Union, had been raised even before the turn of the millennium, these calls first actually began to bear concrete fruit in the mid-2000s.
In 2005, construction began on the Subic–Clark–Tarlac Expressway, creating a linked expressway system which reached all the way to Tarlac City, Tarlac – an improvement over the North Luzon Expressway's terminus which reached only up to Mabalacat, Pampanga.
In 2006, Congressional representatives from Northern Luzon took advantage of the final reading of House Bill 5749 to lobby for a project that would extend the expressway system to Rosario, as a means to boost trade, tourism, and speed up transportation in the provinces of Tarlac, Eastern Pangasinan, and La Union. As a result of this lobbying, the Arroyo administration announced in October 2006 a ten-year period in which the North Luzon Expressway would be extended from Mabalacat, Pampanga, to Rosario, La Union, and the South Luzon Expressway would be extended from Calamba, Laguna, to Lucena in Quezon, and eventually up to Matnog, Sorsogon.
In 2008, the SCTEx was formally opened, setting the stage for the development of the TPLEx, which would extend beyond the SCTEx' terminus in Tarlac City.
The initial plan for the construction of the TPLEx was that it would be carried out in two phases: The first phase would involve the construction of two lanes while the second phase entailed its expansion into four lanes to accommodate 25,000 vehicles.
The proposed superhighway would be built parallel to MacArthur Highway, passing through the city of Tarlac and the municipalities of La Paz, Gerona, Victoria, Pura, Anao, and Ramos in Tarlac, Nampicuan and Cuyapo in Nueva Ecija and Rosales, Villasis, Urdaneta, Binalonan, Laoac, Pozorrubio, and Sison in Pangasinan, and Rosario, La Union.
Development stageTollway alignment
Phase 1Tarlac City, Tarlac, to Rosales, Pangasinan
Phase 2Rosales, Pangasinan, to Urdaneta City, Pangasinan
Phase 3Urdaneta City, Pangasinan, to Rosario, La Union
ExtensionRosario, La Union, to San Fernando, La Union

The financing, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of the Tarlac–La Union Toll Expressway phase 1 was eventually awarded to Private Infra Dev Corporation

Project financing

Three local banks undertook the financing of the TPLEX: BDO Unibank, Development Bank of the Philippines, and Land Bank of the Philippines. This made TPLEX notable in the Infrastructure and Development Financing industry "the first Public-Private Partnership project in the Philippines to feature an all-domestic cast of sponsors and lenders.” London-based Project Finance Magazine named the TPLEX as its "Asia Pacific Transport Deal of the Year" for 2011.
The project is being implemented through public-private partnership using the build–operate–transfer scheme in which the project proponent is responsible for the design, financing, and construction of the initial two-lane expressway.
As each section of the toll road is completed, it is turned over to the government. The government then grants the proponent the franchise to operate and maintain the toll road, after which the proponent, after a certificate to commence toll operation issued by the Toll Regulatory Board, operates the road on behalf of the government under a long term concession agreement.

Development disputes

Land acquisition

A contributor to delays in the early development of the TPLEX was the acquisition of the right of way for the project. With the TPLEX identified as a high priority government project, the Department of Public Works and Highways was given the task of acquiring the right of way for the project's proposed alignment, and was allocated P793 million in the hope that the process could be expedited. However, numerous legal disputes regarding affected properties, notably in the Tarlac segment of the project, meant delays in the negotiation process being undertaken by the DPWH.

Alignment of the Rosario interchange

The expected completion of the entire expressway caused a major delay when an unsolicited proposal was brought up to change the alignment of the project to change the location of the final interchange in Rosario, La Union. Former Pangasinan 5th District Representative Mark Cojuangco proposed three alignments: one would pass through Urdaneta City, then San Fabian, and exits Brgy. Cataguintingan of Rosario, La Union. This is about 1.48 kilometers longer from the original TPLEX end at Barangay Subusob, Rosario. The second proposal will also pass through San Fabian but will end at the original TPLEX end at Barangay Subusob. The first two proposals skips Pozorrubio. The third proposal will pass through Pozorrubio, San Fabian, and then end at Barangay Subusub. All proposals intend to skip the municipality of Sison. The Cordillera Administrative Region Development Council has rejected the idea. The target completion date had been moved from end of April 2017 to end April 2018.

Construction of phase 1 (Tarlac City to Rosales)

The first phase of the Tarlac-La Union Toll Expressway started in January 2010.
In April 2013, San Miguel Corporation announced that the segment from Tarlac City up to Urdaneta will be built with four lanes, instead of the initial plan of two lanes only. However, this also pushed back the opening day of the expressway from June 2013 to November 2013.

Tarlac City–Pura segment opening

On October 25, 2013, the Toll Regulatory Board authorized the issuance of the Toll Operation Permit for the Tarlac City–Pura segment of the TPLEX after the construction of that segment was completed by Private Infra Dev Corp., the all-Filipino consortium backed by conglomerates San Miguel Corporation and DMCI Holdings, Inc.
This first phase, referred to as section 1A, begins with a connection to SCTEX, then stretches from Tarlac City to Victoria, and then to Pura, Tarlac. It is expected to cut current travel time to Baguio by as much as 40 minutes.

Pura–Ramos segment opening

On December 23, 2013, the expressway opened up to Ramos, Tarlac, bringing TPLEX up to of its operational length.

Ramos–Carmen/Rosales segment opening

On April 16, 2014, phase 1 of the project was completed when the Rosales section was opened in time for the Lenten traffic and it is the halfway to go to Baguio.

Construction of phase 2 (Rosales to Urdaneta)

Carmen–Urdaneta segment opening

In December 2014, section 2 of the project, covering 13.72 km from Carmen to Urdaneta, was opened to traffic, as what PIDC president Mark Dumol had announced on the day the completion of phase 1 was announced.

Construction of phase 3 (Urdaneta to Rosario)

In the December 2014 announcement for the opening of phase 2, Dumol also projected that the last section, covering 25.83 km from Urdaneta to Rosario and including an exit in Pozorrubio, would be completed some time in 2015. However, there were delays in the implementation of the project, which included a highly disputed proposal to divert the exit away to San Fabian in Pangasinan.
The DPWH and the PIDC announced in July 2015 that they will continue to follow the original plan for the last phase exiting in Rosario, adding that this last phase would be completed by the following year, 2016.
This development phase was further subdivided into phase 3A, from Urdaneta to Pozorrubio, and phase 3B, Pozorrubio to Rosario. Section 3A would include trumpet-type interchanges at Binalonan and Pozorrubio, while section 3B include an interchange at Sison and the roundabout-style terminus interchange in Rosario, La Union.
After the opening of the exit at Binalonan in December 2017, the DPWH said segment 3B from Pozorrubio to Rosario is expected to be completed in June 2019.

Urdaneta to Binalonan segment opening

By mid-August 2016, the first exit of section 3A, at Binalonan Exit, had been opened to the driving public. Notably, this created easy access to the Minor Basilica of Our Lady of Manaoag, located only 10 minutes away from the new exit.

Binalonan to Pozorrubio segment opening

By December 6, 2017, the last exit of section 3A, at Pozorrubio, Pangasinan, had been opened to the driving public. In September 2016, DPWH said this exit of section 3A, which covers the 7.53-km from Binalonan to Pozorrubio, was supposed to open in December 2016. The Binalonan to Pozorrubio section was expected to open around October 27, 2017, but the section did not open on that date due to the minor right-of-way issues on the missing 1-kilometer fence.

Pozorrubio to Rosario segment opening

By July 15, 2020, the Pozorrubio to Rosario segment of the expressway opened to motorists, with the exception of the Sison exit, which was still under construction as the main carriageway opened.

Future

Extension to La Union

As a part of the project of increasing the 200 km radius of High Standard Highways of the Japan International Cooperation Agency into a 300 km radius from Metro Manila, the expressway will be extended to the city of San Fernando, La Union. There are also plans to move the extension terminus to San Juan, La Union and will be divided into three segments, namely:
SegmentCoverageKilometers
Segment 1Rosario to Tubao18
Segment 2Tubao to Naguilian23
Segment 3Naguilian to San Juan18.4

Extension to Laoag

On June 11, 2013, at the Annual Stockholders Meeting of San Miguel Corporation, its Chairman, Eduardo Cojuangco Jr., revealed plans of extending the expressway north to Laoag, Ilocos Norte. He said that the extension of the toll road business to Laoag has been raised during the Arroyo administration.

Technical specifications

The Tarlac–Pangasinan–La Union Expressway uses a closed road tolling system where motorists get a card upon entry and surrender it on exit. The toll fee is per kilometer travelled, and divided by vehicle class. On April 8, 2019, the Autosweep electronic toll collection system, which is its parent company's RFID system across its controlled tollways in the country, is implemented at TPLEX. This ensures interoperability with other SMC-operated tollways as well as those of MPTC's such as NLEX and SCTEX.
ClassToll
Class 1
/km
Class 2
/km
Class 3
/km

Features

Special features of the expressway will include:

Current exits

Future Extension Exits