Huli ka!

According to this article on ABS-CBNNews.com about the increase in toll rates on Coastal Road and STAR, SLEx is expected to implement a new round of rate hikes by March or April due to "road improvements".

Can anyone confirm this? Also, based on our understanding SLEx, starts after the Alabang interchange, right? Does this mean that the Nichols to Alabang (and vice-versa) rates won't be included in the increase?

Toll fees for the Coastal Road and STAR tollways are scheduled to rise on January 1, 2009. According to the TRB, the rate hike is justified as the last hike was implemented 2 years ago.

Based on this article, the new rates will be as follows:

Coastal Road
- Class 1 vehicles or cars: P22 (from P18)
- Class 2 or light trucks and buses: P43 (from P36)
- Class 3 or heavy trucks: P65 (from P54)

STAR (Southern Tagalog Arterial Road) Stage 1 - Santo Tomas to Lipa
- Class 1 vehicles or cars: P29 (from P24)
- Class 2 or light trucks and buses: P58 (from P47)
- Class 3 or heavy trucks: P87 (from P71)

STAR Stage 2 - Lipa to Batangas City
- Class 1 vehicles or cars: P26 (from P20)
- Class 2 or light trucks and buses: P52 (from P40)
- Class 3 or heavy trucks: P77 (from P60)

Toll fees for the NLEX, SLEX, Skyway and the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway will however remain unchanged.

Wonder what the basis for the rate hike is? Most likely it is the increase in prices in general. Oil may have gone down a lot, but that still has to be reflected in the prices of everything else.

Eastern Petroleum extends P1 discount for 6 more days
Eastern Petroleum's discount of P1 for gas and P0.50 for diesel is extended until January 6. No word from Petron or Unioil, though.

PNCC Strike closes Skyway for 2 hours
Around 100 employees marched on the Skyway this morning, totally blocking off all northbound traffic. One thing to note here is that the article mentions that "with the Citra takeover, SLEx toll fees would increase by more than 100 percent." Another article stated that "Citra would be allowed to jack up its collection by up to 150 percent."

Patay na naman ang mga taga south!

But only from 10pm of New Year's eve until 6am of New Year's day. This is actually an annual thing for them, and they do this for Christmas, New Year's and Good Friday.

Was supposed to post this before Christmas, but I wasn't sure what time they raise the bars. Remembered about it when I saw this article, so I'm posting it now.

So if you've always wanted to pass the Skyway, this is the time to do it.