Southeast Metro Manila Expressway
The Southeast Metro Manila Expressway, also known as Skyway Stage 4, C-6 Expressway and formerly Metro Manila Expressway, is a proposed tolled expressway running across eastern Metro Manila and western Rizal. The expressway will help decongest the existing roadways across Metro Manila, such as EDSA and Circumferential Road 5. The expressway is part of the larger Circumferential Road 6 project, expanding from the original C-6 currently passing from General Santos Avenue in Taguig up to Highway 2000 in Taytay, will expand to Cainta, Pasig, Marikina, San Mateo, and in Quezon City. Just like the C-5 Southlink Expressway and NLEX Harbor Link, Class 3 Trucks are allowed on this expressway
The expressway will begin at the Skyway near FTI, Taguig with connections feeding from the C-5 Southlink Expressway, and end at the Batasang Pambansa Complex in Quezon City with a possible extension connection to NLEX Segment 8.2 at the Regalado Stack Interchange. It will also connect to the North Luzon Expressway in Balagtas, Bulacan via a northern spur diverting from the mainline Southeast Metro Manila Expressway.
The entire expressway will be a future component of Expressway 5 of the Philippine expressway network.
History
In 1945, the Metropolitan Thoroughfare Plan was submitted by Quezon City planners Louis Croft and Antonio Kayanan, which proposed the laying of 10 radial roads to convey traffic in and out of the city of Manila to the surrounding cities and provinces and the completion of six circumferential roads that will act as beltways of the city, forming altogether a web-like arterial road system, including the sixth circumferential road, which runs from Meycauayan to Las Pinas. In 1973, it was proposed in the Urban Transportation Study in Manila Metropolitan Area that a highway be constructed between Navotas and Las Pinas.In 1983, under the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos, it was proposed that the highway would be a tolled expressway known as the Metro Manila Expressway, and the route would begin at the North Luzon Expressway in Meycauayan and end at the South Luzon Expressway in Bicutan, Paranaque. The total length is approximately 44.570 km. The plan was undertaken by the Philippine National Construction Corporation. The proposal was revived in 1993 when PNCC signed an agreement to build the expressway with the Indonesian PT Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada.
The agreement was supplemented on February 14, 1994, with a related undertaking by CITRA. CITRA was to provide a preliminary feasibility study on the Metro Manila Skyways project, a system of elevated roadway networks passing through the heart of the Metropolitan Manila area. To accelerate the actual implementation of both the MME and the MMS projects, PNCC and CITRA entered into a second agreement. Through that agreement, CITRA committed to finance and undertake the preparation, updating, and revalidation of previous studies on the construction, operation, and maintenance of the projects. According to the CITRA proposal, the planned alignment was to have 38.4 kilometers from Meycauayan to Bicutan, the same route as the 1983 plan, while the remaining segments leading to San Pedro were 18 kilometers and 19 kilometers to Cavite.
In the late 2000s proposal, the Circumferential Road involves a 59.5-kilometer tollway that links the North and South Luzon Expressways via the towns of Rizal and the eastern parts of Metro Manila. This tollway will traverse the cities of San Jose del Monte in Bulacan, Antipolo in Rizal, and Marikina, Taguig, and Muntinlupa in Metro Manila. It shall also pass through the towns of Rodriguez/Montalban, San Mateo, Taytay, and Angono in Rizal and Bacoor, Imus, Kawit, and Noveleta in Cavite. The C-6 project was also included in the 2010 Japan International Cooperation Agency study on the High Standard Highway master plan, the feasibility studies undertaken by the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, the Japan External Trade Organization and the Korean International Cooperation Agency with a full-scale FS.
The plan was launched again in 2014 by Citra, PNCC, and San Miguel Corporation. The Metro Manila Expressway, or C-6 Project, is actually Stage 4 of the South Metro Manila Skyway. This toll road will stretch from Bicutan to San Jose Del Monte and will then connect to the proposed MRT-7 Project, which will extend to the NLEX. The toll road will have a length of 34.33 km, 7.62 km of which is the elevated portion, six lanes with six interchanges and 20 ramps, and a close toll collection system. The construction cost is estimated at P19.76 billion out of the total P29.84 billion project cost. The Restated Supplement to the Business and Joint Venture Agreement for the MME Project, executed in January 2014, contains the agreement of the parties and embodies the terms and conditions for MME.
The project's groundbreaking ceremony was held on January 8, 2018. The project was scheduled to be completed in 2022, but construction was delayed due to right of way issues for the Taguig segment. In November 2023, Ayala Land signed an agreement with SMC Infrastructure for an integration agreement to link Arca South to the Skyway, and in February 2025, the Department of Transportation signed with the private stakeholders for the Right of Way Usage Agreement.