Limited Access Highway Act Overview

Definition and types of limited access facilities

Section 2 defines a limited access facility as a highway or street especially designed for through traffic.
Section 2 provides that owners or occupants of abutting land or other persons have no right or easement or only a limited right or easement of access, light, air, or view because their property abuts the facility or for any other reason.
Section 2 recognizes limited access facilities as parkways, from which trucks, busses, and other commercial vehicles shall be excluded.
Section 2 also recognizes limited access facilities as free ways open to customary forms of street and highway traffic.

DPW&C authority to establish and control

Section 3 authorizes the Department of Public Works and Communications to plan, designate, establish, regulate, vacate, alter, improve, maintain, and provide limited access facilities for public use.
Section 3 limits this authority to situations where the Department is of the opinion that traffic conditions, present or future, justify such special facilities.
Section 3 requires local legislative consent for limited access facilities affecting local streets and plazas within provinces, cities, and towns: the establishment is conditioned on the consent of the provincial board, city council, or municipal council, as the case may be.

Facility design, restricted access, and final determinations

Section 4 authorizes the Department of Public Works and Communications to design limited access facilities and to regulate, restrict, or prohibit access to best serve the intended traffic use.
Section 4 states that the Department’s determination of design is final.
Section 4 authorizes physical separation and channelization of traffic by raised curbs, central dividing sections, or other physical separations, or by designated roadways using signs, markers, stripes, and proper lane guidance devices.
Section 4 provides that no person has any right of ingress or egress to, from, or across limited access facilities to or from abutting lands except at designated points where access may be permitted.
Section 4 allows such access to be permitted only upon terms and conditions specified from time to time.

Acquisition of property for facilities

Section 5 authorizes the Department, in pursuance of existing law, to recommend acquisition of public property and property rights for limited access facilities and service roads.
Section 5 includes acquisition of rights of access, air, view, and light, by gift, devise, purchase, or condemnation.
Section 5 requires that acquisition follows the manner authorized by law for acquiring property rights in connection with highways and streets within relevant jurisdictions.
Section 5 provides that all property rights acquired under this Act shall be in fee simple.
Section 5 authorizes a national, provincial, city, or municipal government, in its discretion, to acquire an entire lot, block, or tract if the interests of the public will be best served, even if the entire tract is not immediately needed for the right-of-way proper.

Expedited condemnation proceedings

Section 6 grants precedence to court proceedings necessary to acquire property or property rights under this Act.
Section 6 makes such proceedings take precedence over all other cases not involving the public interest in all courts.
Section 6 directs that precedence be given to expedite limited access facility cases.

New facility status and grade-crossing elimination

Section 7 authorizes the Department to designate and establish limited access highways as new and additional facilities.
Section 7 also authorizes the Department to designate and establish an existing street or highway as included within a limited access facility.
Section 7 authorizes the Department to eliminate at-grade intersection of limited access facilities with existing national and provincial roads, and city and town or barrio streets, by:
- grade separation; or
- a service road; or
- closing off such roads and streets at the right-of-way boundary line of the limited access facility.
Section 7 provides that after establishment of a limited access facility, no highway or street not part of the facility shall intersect it at grade.
Section 7 prohibits opening into or connecting with a limited access facility without the Department’s consent and previous approval.
Section 7 requires the Department’s consent and approval be given only if the public interest will be served.

Local service roads and jurisdiction

Section 8 authorizes the Department of Public Works and Communications and city, municipal, or provincial governments, in connection with developing a limited access facility, to plan, designate, establish, use, regulate, alter, improve, maintain, and vacate local service roads and streets.
Section 8 authorizes governments to designate existing roads or streets as local service roads and streets and exercise jurisdiction over them in the same manner authorized for limited access facilities under this Act.
Section 8 conditions this authority on the opinion that such local service roads and streets are necessary or desirable.
Section 8 requires local service roads and streets to be of appropriate design and separated from the limited access facility proper by devices the proper authority designates as necessary or desirable.

Financing and amendments to funding rules

Section 9 requires that once a limited access facility is planned, designed, and established, complete financing of construction shall be provided by Congress in the annual Public Works Appropriation Act.
Section 9 provides that long-term financing plans shall be used to expedite construction so it can be completed in an estimated period of not more than three years.
Section 9 requires initial expenditures for investigating, surveying, planning, and designing limited access facilities to be carried under financial arrangements available under Republic Act Numbered Nine hundred seventeen.
Section 9 expressly includes, within the initial expenditures, acquisition of property and property rights for limited access facilities and service roads as provided in Section 5.
Section 9 allows the Department to avail financing arrangements authorized under Act Numbered Three thousand five hundred, as amended by Republic Acts Numbered One thousand four hundred two and One thousand four hundred thirty-five, and Republic Act Numbered One thousand, to fund initial expenditures for:
- acquisition of rights-of-way;
- construction of stream-crossing facilities; and
- contiguous sections of limited access highways that can be met from continuing appropriations under those Acts and from savings in bond proceeds previously authorized by Congress for national road improvements and construction in provinces and cities traversed by the limited access highway facilities.
Section 9 amends Section 6 of Republic Act Numbered Nine hundred seventeen by adding a new paragraph (e) called “(e) Highway Engineering Fund.”
Section 9 provides that one per centum (1%) of the Highway Special Fund shall be set aside and made available until expended for engineering, statistical and economic investigation, studies and planning, including:
- design,
- preparation of advance plans, working drawings and specifications,
- other procedures preliminary to actual highway construction,
- including construction of limited access highways and facilities included,
- expenditures for salaries and wages and other expenses of necessary technical personnel engaged to undertake the work described.

Prohibited driving acts and criminal penalties

Section 10 makes it unlawful for any person to drive a vehicle over, upon, or across any curb, central dividing section, or other separation or across any curb, central dividing section, or other separation or dividing line on limited access facilities.
Section 10 prohibits making a left turn, semicircular turn, or U-turn except through an opening provided for that purpose in the dividing curb section, separation, or line.
Section 10 prohibits driving a vehicle except in the proper lane provided for that purpose and in the proper direction and to the right of the central dividing curb, separation section, or line.
Section 10 prohibits driving any vehicle into the limited access facility from a local service road except through an opening provided for that purpose in the dividing curb or dividing section or dividing line which separate such service road from the limited access facility proper.
Section 10 provides that any person who violates any provision of this section, upon arrest and conviction, shall be punished under the penal provisions of the Philippine Highway Act of Nineteen hundred fifty-three and the Revised Penal Code.

Separability, repeal of inconsistent laws, and effectivity

Section 11 provides a separability rule: if any section, provision, or clause of this Act is declared invalid or inapplicable to any person or circumstance, the invalidity does not affect portions or persons or circumstances not so affected.
Section 11 repeals all laws or portions of laws inconsistent with the policy and provisions of this Act to the extent of such inconsistency in their application to limited access facilities provided for in this Act.
Section 12 states that this Act takes effect immediately upon approval.
The Act is approved June 22, 1957.