Wednesday, September 12, 2007 Bus system by December: mayor
EVEN if he suffers politically, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña wants to set up the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in the Banilad-Talamban corridor as soon as possible to reduce traffic there.
Osmeña said that if they can put everything in place by December, including the buses, the City Government may start implementing it by the end of the year.
The mayor said the Banilad-Talamban stretch will be the pilot travel line, where 20 air-conditioned Kaohsiung buses will service the commuters during the initial operations.
City Hall will operate the BRT itself but will eventually bid out the project to private investors, who will also have to provide the buses.
Osmeña said it is about time the City implements the transport system that has helped Curitiba, Brazil address its traffic problems and improve the quality of life of its citizens for 30 years now.
“We’re going to try to implement this in the Banilad-Talamban corridor in less than one year so we can eventually remove the cars and jeepneys from the roads. I’m going to exercise political will on this because very clearly, status quo is not acceptable anymore,” said the mayor.
Consulted
In his news conference yesterday, Osmeña assured that the students of schools in the Banilad and Talamban areas will be consulted when the City identifies bus stops.
Jeepneys will still be allowed to ply the Banilad-Talamban route during the initial stages of operations but will not be allowed to stop on the designated BRT bus stops.
But once the operations are in full swing, jeepneys will not be allowed to ply the route.
“Once it is fully implemented, there will be no more jeepneys there. If we can implement this by Christmas, fine. We have to have a working model for everyone to understand and in the future, we will have the private sector run it,” said Osmeña.
A BRT system works like the train system but uses buses instead of train coaches and bus lanes instead of train tracks. It is also cheaper to operate.
Stairless
The buses are stairless and passengers pay at the specially designed bus stops.
As in Curitiba, the mayor said there will be lanes that will be dedicated solely for the buses. The Curitiba BRT uses up to five bi-articulate buses connected by bolts.
When asked how much the system will cost, the mayor said in jest: “Fifty thousand votes for BO-PK.” He expects city-wide opposition to the plan, but said he will do it anyway to solve the congestion problems in the city.
“We are not doing this for profit so if we have to subsidize it, we will subsidize the operations at least during the early stage. We have to transfer the passengers to the buses to minimize the number of vehicles on the road,” he said. (LCR)
