Andrews Avenue | ||||
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Nichols Road | ||||
![]() Andrews Avenue, looking west near
Newport City with the elevated
NAIA Expressway | ||||
Route information | ||||
Maintained by Department of Public Works and Highways - South Manila District Engineering Office | ||||
Length | 4.3 km (2.7 mi) | |||
Major junctions | ||||
West end | ![]() | |||
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East end | West Service Road at Sales Interchange, Pasay (as Sales Road) [1] | |||
Location | ||||
Country | Philippines | |||
Major cities | Parañaque and Pasay | |||
Highway system | ||||
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Andrews Avenue (formerly and still commonly known as Nichols Road) is a major east-west thoroughfare in Metro Manila, Philippines that functions as a metropolitan linkage between Pasay and Taguig. [2] It runs underneath the NAIA Expressway almost parallel to Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) to the north connecting Roxas Boulevard and Domestic Road near Bay City with South Luzon Expressway near Newport City. It has an arterial extension continuing 3.4 kilometers (2.1 mi) northeast to 5th Avenue and McKinley Road in Bonifacio Global City known as Lawton Avenue.
Andrews Avenue also serves as the main feeder to Ninoy Aquino International Airport from the east and west and is the main access road to Newport World Resorts (formerly Resorts World Manila).
Andrews Avenue follows the old route of Nichols Road in Pasay and is split into three sections.
At its eastern terminus, the route begins as Sales Road at the Sales Interchange with the South Luzon Expressway. It is a continuation of Lawton Avenue from Fort Bonifacio via the Sales Bridge and a roundabout. It runs for approximately 900 meters (3,000 ft) as it heads southwesterly across the Villamor Air Base and Villamor Golf Course toward Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3. This section ends with another roundabout beneath the NAIA Expressway's off-ramp just before the road makes a sharp bend to the west.
The main section of Andrews Avenue is an eight-lane divided arterial that runs along the northern perimeter of the airport. From the roundabout across from the Philippine Air Force Aerospace Museum, the avenue continues along the southern side of Newport City, a mixed-use development facing the NAIA Terminal 3. It passes the integrated resort complex of Newport World Resorts, the Star Cruises Centre and the Shrine of St. Therese before reaching a large roundabout, which used to have a prominent "egg structure" in the middle until 2015, called Circulo del Mundo. [3] Access to the airport terminal is via this roundabout which also serves as a boundary between Newport and the older barangays of Pasay. From the former Circulo down to the intersection with Domestic Road, the avenue is lined with airline offices and maintenance facilities including Philippine Airlines, as well as a few barangays in between. The Manila Light Rail Transit facilities are also located in this intersection before the avenue becomes known as Airport Road.
West of Domestic Road and a small creek called Estero de Tripa de Gallina, the road enters the Baclaran area of Parañaque. The road narrows into a four-lane undivided road carrying one-way westbound traffic. The road meets its western terminus at Roxas Boulevard.
The avenue was formerly called Nichols Field Road, [4] later shortened to Nichols Road, after the US air base in Pasay which it served. Nichols Field, in turn, was named after Captain Henry E. Nichols, a US Navy commander of monitor ship USS Monadnock during the Philippine–American War. [5] [6] The air base was built in 1912 [7] and the road to Fort McKinley (now Fort Bonifacio) and to Dewey Boulevard (now Roxas Boulevard) was constructed shortly thereafter. The whole stretch from Dewey to Fort McKinley was named Nichols Road. [8]
At present, the Fort Bonifacio/Taguig portion is named Lawton Avenue. In Pasay, the longest portion has been renamed to Andrews Avenue, in honor of Colonel Edwin Dudley Buencamino Andrews, the first Filipino post-war Philippine Air Force Commander who perished in the crash of 'Lili Marlene', a C-47 transport plane, at Mount Makaturing in Lanao on May 18, 1947. [9]
From 2004 to 2017, the NAIA Expressway was built above most of the road's Pasay portion. The Circulo del Mundo roundabout built on the avenue was opened to motorists in 2010, featuring its centerpiece, Layag Islas (Islands in Flight), which was constructed from September 2009 to December 2010 but was eventually dismantled in November 2014 due to public backlash over its perceived wastefulness. [10]
On April 14, 2024, a sinkhole formed along Sales Road near Villamor Air Base Gate 3, forcing the temporary closure of its two innermost eastbound lanes. Initially a pothole, it expanded to approximately 3 meters (9.8 ft) in both width and depth. [11] On April 15, Maynilad Water Services reported that the sinkhole likely resulted from soil saturation due to a water leak from its secondary pipeline, with the company investigating potential external damage as the cause. [12] SMC Infrastructure also launched an investigation whether the sinkhole and the leak have compromised the integrity of the NAIA Expressway. [13] It was finally covered on April 17. [14]