Councilor: Davao City to get technical aid from ADB

DAVAO City Councilor Pilar Braga said the city is set to receive a technical grant from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for urban transport.

Braga on Tuesday said the ADB communicated to her their offer to have the city as the pilot case in the country of their program on helping cities develop an urban transport system.

"This would be an assistance technical grant. Wala pang napag-uusapang amount, but this would involve lending us planning experts. I have informed the City Mayor Sara Duterte of this and she is supportive. Magkakaroon pa ng memorandum of agreement but most definitely by early next year this will materialize," Braga said in an interview.

Braga, in her privilege speech, said the ADB would be lending assistance to the city so that the city "can chart its own strategy of economic, environmental and social development, all while mitigating transport's negative impacts."

"This effort deviates from the 'predict-and-provide' paradigm of urban transport planning that often cast the needs of a city in terms of more roads and more cars," she said.

Included among the set of preliminary plans with the ADB is to study the feasibility of a bus transit system.

Specifically, Braga said the framework focuses on mobility and sustainability for which an inter-disciplinary team under Almec Corporation has been commissioned to undertake the following activities in the city:

* Assists the city define its Strategic Vision for sustainable transport (this will be done through a City-wide contest);

* Assess the existing public transport routes, to be more responsive and accessible to a wider community to users (this will be done through extensive surveys);

* Craft and affordable, and socially-acceptable, program to convert tricycles and/or multi-cabs into low emission clean vehicles;

* Re-visit the city plan for a mass transit systen by evaluating a more sustainable option known as a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) System; and

* Study the creation of an Urban Sustainable Transport Fund that can provide the continuing support to the realization of the city's vision.

The duration of the grant for a Sustainable Urban Transport System would last for five months.

Braga said the proposal is part of ADB's program covering several Asian cities with the city as the pilot case for the Philippines.

The undertaking would be formed in partnership with the Department of Transportation and Communication. (Jade C. Zaldivar)