Prior to the construction of the Balintawak Interchange and North Diversion Road, it forms an old road that linked the city of Manila with Novaliches, previously called as the Manila-del Monte Garay Road,[citation needed]Manila-Novaliches Road,[2]Bonifacio-Manila Road,[3]Balintawak-Novaliches Road,[4] and Highway 52.[5][6][7] The portion of the road south of EDSA is presently known as A. Bonifacio Avenue. Circa 1955, the section of the highway from Novaliches to the Caloocan–San Jose del Monte boundary was called Novaliches-San Jose Road.[8]
It was later changed to the Don Tomas Susano Road, after the first officially recognized political leader of the district and municipal president of Caloocan during the American occupation of the Philippines. The name changed once more to Quirino Highway, right after the death of Philippine PresidentElpidio Quirino, who had resided and died at a nearby retreat house in Quezon City. It was the historical reversed widening of a highway, to narrow down for public use.
Route description
Quirino Highway starts from Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, near the Balintawak Cloverleaf in Quezon City. It then runs shortly in parallel to North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) carrying one-way northbound traffic and turns northeast towards the northwestern part of Quezon City. It then meets the Old Novaliches and New Novaliches Flyovers, connecting it to NLEX. The highway turns right at Novaliches Proper, approaching the area of Fairview, where it becomes a one-way westbound highway between Belfast Street to Regalado Highway, adjacent to Robinsons Novaliches and SM City Fairview. Its length from there to Araneta Avenue in Pangarap Village, Caloocan is followed by the under-construction elevated MRT Line 7 line. The road ends its N127 designation as it enters north Caloocan. Crossing the Marilao River, it then enters the province of Bulacan at San Jose del Monte, straddling along the mountainous terrain, and ends at the roundabout with Villarama Road and Ipo Road in Bigte, Norzagaray. Past the roundabout, it is continued by Ipo Road that leads to Ipo Dam.
The highway is also the alternate route for motorists en route to Baliwag and up to Cagayan Valley via Cagayan Valley Road.