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Saturday, November 19, 2005
Editorials: Failed traffic experiment
IT’S good that the Mactan Cebu Bridge Management Board (MCBMB) saw the light and scrapped the one-way traffic experiment on the first Mandaue-Mactan bridge.
Motorists and commuters who had to endure the traffic mess caused by the experiment can now breath easier with the return to the old but less chaotic traffic setup.
The problem with the experiment was not the MCBMB’s effort to rationalize the use of the two bridges but the manner with which it was studied and carried out. Surely, there could have been better ways to put the two bridges to a better use minus the traffic mess that the one-way scheme for the first bridge created.
What those ways are should come out in the detailed assessment on the experiment that the MCBMB should conduct in the coming days.
Meanwhile, the MCBMB should go easy on calls to build a third bridge.
While that should be placed in Cebu’s long-term development agenda, the plan should go through the usual exhaustive study considering the current economic condition.
In the meantime, the MCBMB or the concerned local governments of Lapu—Lapu, Mandaue and Cebu Cities and the town of Cordova can look for other ways to ease the traffic burden on the two bridges on the short term.
The sea route, for example, has not been given the attention it deserves, with the current boat service from Cebu to Lapu-Lapu neglected and therefore underutilized.
Shooting dogs at the SRP
There should be no quarrel with the need to plug all the openings where the dreaded bird flu virus could possibly pass through.
But doing this should have scientific basis so efforts won’t be wasted.
So if Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña is serious in his plan to equip his people with shotguns and shoot stray dogs at the South Reclamation Project to prevent the spread of the bird flu virus, the better option is to first ask for expert opinion.
Like, can the bird flu virus be transmitted from bird to dog and from dog to man?
Besides, what will the mayor do, create a team of anti-stray dogs vigilantes?
Actually, Osmeña may just have been joking and that his blurting out the plan was meant to stress his point about the possibility of the entry of the bird flu virus through the SRP because of the presence there of migratory birds.
But then again, with his stance on the summary execution of suspected criminals in the city, the mayor may have really meant what he said.
(November 19, 2005 issue)
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