Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City
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Commonwealth Avenue, formerly known as Don Mariano Marcos Avenue, is a
highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-access ...
located in
Quezon City Quezon City (, ; fil, Lungsod Quezon ), also known as the City of Quezon and Q.C. (read in Filipino as Kyusi), is the List of cities in the Philippines, most populous city in the Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a populatio ...
,
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
, which spans from six to eighteen lanes and is the widest in the Philippines. It is one of the major roads in
Metro Manila Metropolitan Manila (often shortened as Metro Manila; fil, Kalakhang Maynila), officially the National Capital Region (NCR; fil, link=no, Pambansang Punong Rehiyon), is the capital region, seat of government and one of three List of metrop ...
and is designated as part of
Radial Road 7 Radial Road 7 is a network of roads in Metro Manila, connecting the cities of Manila, Quezon City and Caloocan, as well as San Jose del Monte and the municipality of Norzagaray in the province of Bulacan. The road is one of 10 radial roads in Met ...
(R-7) of the older Manila arterial road system and National Route 170 (N170) of the
Philippine highway network The Philippine highway network is a network of national roads owned and maintained by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and organized into three classifications according to their function or purpose: national primary, seconda ...
. Commonwealth Avenue starts from
Elliptical Road The Elliptical Road is a roundabout in Quezon City which circumscribes the Quezon Memorial Circle, a large park. It was named after its elliptical shape. The spinning in this roundabout is in a counterclockwise direction. The road is divided ...
, which circumscribes the
Quezon Memorial Circle The Quezon Memorial Circle is a national park located in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines. The park is located inside a large traffic circle in the shape of an ellipse and bounded by the Elliptical Road and is the main park of Quezon Cit ...
, and it passes through the areas of Philcoa, Tandang Sora, Balara,
Batasan Hills Batasan Hills is a barangay of Quezon City, Philippines. The barangay was originally planned as the National Government Center of the Philippines. The Batasang Pambansa Complex, which sits atop the Constitution Hill, is the legislative session ...
, Fairview, and ends at
Quirino Highway The Quirino Highway, formerly called the El Quirino Express Road or Ipo Road, is a four-to-eight lane, secondary highway that connects Quezon City to the municipality of Norzagaray in Bulacan, Philippines. The road is a designated as National ...
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 Speed limits on road traffic, as used in most countries, set the legal maximum speed at which vehicles may travel on a given stretch of road. Speed limits are generally indicated on a traffic sign reflecting the maximum permitted speed - expres ...
is being enforced to reduce the high rate of accidents on the avenue.


Route description

Commonwealth Avenue follows a curving route from
Elliptical Road The Elliptical Road is a roundabout in Quezon City which circumscribes the Quezon Memorial Circle, a large park. It was named after its elliptical shape. The spinning in this roundabout is in a counterclockwise direction. The road is divided ...
to Quirino Highway, which includes the section named Fairview Avenue. The main segment, south of its roundabout intersection with Doña Carmen Street called Fairview Rotonda, 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 (or footbridges). The segment has 18 lanes, with 9 lanes per direction, excluding lanes allocated for buses and jeepneys. Fairview Avenue, which refers to the avenue's segment north of Fairview Rotonda, 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".


MRT Line 7

The Metro Rail Transit Line 7 (MRT 7), which will connect with the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 at
North Triangle Common Station North Triangle Common Station (official temporary designation: ''Unified Grand Central Station'', also called Grand Central Station), popularly known as the Common Station, is an under-construction rapid transit terminal and transport hub that ...
, began construction in 2016. Most of the alignment of the MRT 7 will follow the Center island of Commonwealth Avenue up to
Regalado Highway Regalado Highway, officially named as Regalado Avenue (North), , four-to-six-lane highway connecting Quirino Highway with Commonwealth Avenue. It is a main thoroughfare in the Barangay Greater Lagro to Mindanao Avenue Mindanao Avenue ( fil ...
.


History

Commonwealth Avenue is divided into two portions, the six-to eight-lane Fairview Avenue and the eighteen-lane Don Mariano Marcos Avenue. Don Mariano Marcos Avenue, named after
Mariano Marcos Mariano Marcos y Rubio (; April 21, 1897 – March 8, 1945) was a lawyer, educator, and politician from Batac, Ilocos Norte, Philippines. A Congressman from 1925 to 1931, he is best known for being the father of Ferdinand Marcos, who was Preside ...
, the father of President
Ferdinand Marcos Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. ( , , ; September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino politician, lawyer, dictator, and kleptocrat who was the 10th president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He ruled under martial ...
, was constructed in the late-1960s as a two-lane highway to offer a route from
Quezon Memorial Circle The Quezon Memorial Circle is a national park located in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines. The park is located inside a large traffic circle in the shape of an ellipse and bounded by the Elliptical Road and is the main park of Quezon Cit ...
to the new National Government Center (location of the present-day
Batasang Pambansa Complex The Batasang Pambansa Complex, or simply the Batasan (), is the seat of the House of Representatives of the Philippines. It is located along the Batasan Road in Batasan Hills, Quezon City. The complex was initially the home of the Batasang Pa ...
) at Constitution Hill. Quezon City was then the
capital of the Philippines This is a list of current and former national capital cities in the Philippines, which includes during the time of the Captaincy General of the Philippines, Spanish colonization, the First Philippine Republic, the Commonwealth of the Philippines ...
and embassies were to be put up on the stretch of highway. Because the country's
capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...
was moved back to
Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...
in 1976, other establishments were put up instead. Don Mariano Marcos Avenue was later renamed into two parts, Commonwealth Avenue and
Quezon Avenue Manuel L. Quezon Avenue, more often called as Quezon Avenue, or simply Quezon Ave (pronounced: ''Ke-zon-Av''), is a major thoroughfare in Metro Manila named after President Manuel Luis Quezon, the second president of the Philippines. The av ...
. Later, Commonwealth Avenue regained the eight-lane Fairview Avenue, which used to end near 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 The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA; fil, Pangasiwaan sa Pagpapaunlad ng Kalakhang Maynila) is a government agency of the Philippines responsible for constituting the regional government of Metro Manila, comprising the capital ...
(MMDA) 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 at its intersections, while Don Mariano Marcos Avenue uses interchanges at 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 Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, commonly referred to by its acronym EDSA, is a limited-access circumferential highway around Manila, the capital city of the Philippines. It passes through 6 of Metro Manila's 17 local government units or cities, ...
.


Linking to Quirino Highway

On October 1, 2009, Quezon City Mayor
Feliciano Belmonte Jr. Fernando Feliciano "Sonny" Racimo Belmonte Jr., Knights of Rizal, KGCR (born October 2, 1936) is a Filipino people, Filipino politician who served as a member of the Philippine House of Representatives for the Fourth District of Quezon City from ...
announced his 15-year-old plan to link Commonwealth Avenue and Quirino Highway at the cost of to , which would be adjacent to the Zabarte Road. The project was completed in May 2011 and is already operational.


Speed limit implementation

In May 2011, a speed limit was implemented on Commonwealth Avenue following the death of Lourdes Estella-Simbulan, a journalist, in a road accident on the avenue. During the first week of its implementation, 120 violators were apprehended after speeds of over were recorded through
speed gun A radar speed gun (also radar gun and speed trap gun) is a device used to measure the speed of moving objects. It is used in law-enforcement to measure the speed of moving vehicles and is often used in professional spectator sport, for things su ...
s.


Intersections


Notes


References


External links

{{coord, 14, 39, 22, N, 121, 3, 22, E, type:landmark, display=title Streets in Quezon City