Thursday, March 18, 2004
Colon rerouting extended again
LAST month’s extension of the rerouting scheme currently implemented in Cebu City streets was not actually “the last time.”
The City Council moved yesterday the deadline for the rerouting to April 30 pending comments of the committee on laws and public accountability on the proposed ordinance that amended City Ordinance 1320.
That means the experimental scheme in the downtown area has been in effect for a year. A local law allows traffic rerouting experiments to last only for 30 days.
Councilor Nestor Archival, chairman of the committee on transportation, said the extension, this time, will be the last one because the drivers already agreed to the scheme.
Permanent
And once the extension period lapses, it is expected that the scheme will be made permanent because the drivers no longer have any objections to it, he said.
That was after the drivers, during a series of consultations, also agreed that the two-way traffic on Colon St. and other thoroughfares will stay.
In yesterday’s regular session, Archival said that although the proposed ordinance already passed the “committee of four,” which was created to address the problem on rerouting, it still has to undergo a process before being approved.
The committee of four comprised Archival, and Councilors Procopio Fernandez, Jocelyn Pesquera, and Danilo Fernan.
Archival, in his resolution that the council approved, said that although the committee of four already recommended revisions to the proposed ordinance that Fernandez authored, it is still in the hands of the committee on laws.
Fernandez, after incorporating the amendments, which specifically deleted 27 of 174 routes, re-passed the ordinance, which was referred to the committee on laws.
Once the committee on laws renders a report, the ordinance will be scheduled for final deliberation by the council.
Amendment
Archival said the process cannot be done until March 31, the end of the extension approved last Feb. 18.
The proposed ordinance seeks to amend city ordinance 1320, the “Ordinance Regulating the Operation of Public Utility Jeepneys within the City of Cebu and for Other Purposes.”
Fernandez drafted the ordinance because there are current routes that the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board approved without any authority from the council. RHM
(March 18, 2004 issue)
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