As part of the ongoing SLEX rehabilitation plan for the aging Alabang Viaduct, SLEX management is closing the Filinvest exit for southbound travelers on February 22, a little over a week from now. Motorists using the said interchange are going to be made to use the South Station exit which is a few meters before the Alabang exit. The South Station exit has been open since February 9, but has not yet been used as heavily as Filinvest because the latter is still open.

The South Station exit has more toll lanes/booths than the Filinvest-southbound exit. The exit is clean and well lit. The E-Pass indicator is quite bright. I hope these characteristics don't change for the worse too quickly. The actual booths are located quite far from the turn-off point from the expressway so there's some room for queues. Once past the booths, there are wide lanes and clear signs pointing you in your direction.

My main concerns, however, are less of the toll plaza itself, rather its location with regard to the queues that will be forming. Since South Station is only a few meters from the Alabang exit, the area immediately before the South Station and Alabang exits becomes one big choke point, just like Bicutan and Sucat are during rush hours. That should back traffic up quite bad. Unlike those two exits, wherein all vehicles line up toward one major direction, the vehicles lining up before South Station and Alabang are headed in two directions, and, as per my experience at about 10:30 last night, they actually cross paths in a dangerous way. Trucks, buses, jeepneys and other vehicles headed for Alabang were hogging the rightmost lane, while cars headed for South Station were in the middle lane looking for the turn off point. All this confusion with the Filinvest exit still open. I wonder how bad it'll get once Filinvest is closed already...

Perhaps the PNCC can define and enforce lane positioning better, so that the queue for Alabang is not cut by motorists headed for South Station? Maybe moving to the middle lane trucks, buses and other vehicles headed for Alabang might improve overall flow in the area?

To the Southerners, any inputs on this?