SOME officials of the Cebu City Government welcomed the National Economic and Development Authority Investment Coordination Committee’s (NEDA-ICC) approval of the P16.3-billion Cebu Bus Rapid Transit project.
City Administrator Nigel Paul Villarete said that the City’s officials are thankful to the Department of Transportation (DOTr) for heeding the NEDA-ICC’s instruction to review the project’s viability.
“We are very happy that the NEDA-ICC has set aside the April 24 recommendation of DOTr to cancel the Cebu BRT,” he said.
Socio-economic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia confirmed the development after the NEDA-ICC meeting yesterday.
“Cebu BRT was green-lighted by ICC CabCom (Cabinet committee) to get moving and to be complemented in due course by other modes for an intermodal system,” Pernia said in a text message.
Villarete, who has been hands-on in the project for years, said there was no question on the viability of the project, which the World Bank has affirmed.
“We were confident it will have favorable results because the project registered a 53.3 percent EIRR (economic internal rate of return) in the first place, and approved by the ICC itself twice,” he said.
The World Bank approved in 2014 a financial package of about P7.36 billion (US$141 million) for the Cebu BRT. Had delays been avoided, such as in the hiring of a technical support consultant, the contract for construction of Package 1 was supposed to have been signed last April. This phase covers the South Road Properties-Osmeña Blvd. corridor.
Engineer Villarete said that the City is also willing to support the “basket of solutions” in the integrated intermodal transport system (IITS) identified by DOTr.
Villarete said that the City will cooperate in its implementation once the components of IITS are properly validated, including their technical, financial, and economic feasibility, under the NEDA-ICC evaluation and approval process.
Backlogs to erase
Last April, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade and Presidential Assistant for the Visayas recommended the cancellation of the Cebu BRT, citing various reasons.
Early this month, however, the DOTr included two bus systems in its proposed IITS for Cebu. Its condition was that the BRT should be built only on roads with at least three lanes on each side.
What will be the City’s next move after NEDA-ICC’s green light for the Cebu BRT? Villarete said they will now resume the work on the implementation of the project and address all the backlogs.
The project includes the establishment of the Cebu BRT, a “skytrain”, Intelligent Transportation System, greenways project, and light rail from Carcar to Danao and from Mandaue to Mactan airport.
All these, according to the DOTr, encompass the “basket of solutions” needed to address congestion and transport problems in Metro Cebu.
The system will also “ensure interoperability and interconnectivity of different transport modes, and provide an improved public transportation system for the metropolitan area,” Tugade wrote in a letter to Pernia.
The transportation secretary added that the Cebu BRT project will be implemented “along the length and alignment deemed feasible” by the DOTr.