WHILE waiting for the bicycle lanes to be established in Davao City, an environmental group is asking the local legislators to at least give the bicycle users a day or at least an hour for them to be able to traverse in the city.
Interface Development Interventions (Idis), one of the consultant groups in the proposed ordinance entitled "An Ordinance Identifying Safe Bicycle Hours and Days in Davao City," is filed under the office of Councilor Mabel Sunga Acosta and had undergone the committee hearing level.
Idis partnership building officer Ruel Kenneth Felices said the group proposed to give the bicycle users 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. on weekends on certain areas in the city.
However, Felices said they are still redrafting their proposal as it would have a conflict with the current routes of the Peak Hours Augmentation Bus Services (Phabs).
“According to City assistant administrator Tristan Dwight Domingo, in a consultative meeting, said that our proposed routes would interfere the routes of Phabs,” Felices said Monday, June 3, 2019, during the Kapehan sa Dabaw press conference at SM City Davao.
He said Idis is pushing for its implementation as an initial action for sustainable transportation.
“It is important that we would be advocating this one because our global mass transportation had contributed almost 24 percent of the total greenhouse gases in the country,” Felices said.
He cited a 2018 United Nations report, wherein approximately seven million people (4 million come from Asia Pacific including the Philippines) died because of air pollution.
Felices said there are only 370 bicycle owners in the city, based on the data given by the City Planning Development Office.
“Because our road network is not conducive for the biking community,” he said, adding this was one of the reasons why the bicycle lane ordinance or known as the “Avila Law” passed by the late councilor Leonardo “Happy LA” Avila II in 2010 was not fully implemented.
Davao City Transport and Traffic Management Office head Dionisio Abude said in a previous report that the bike lane ordinance needs to be studied first before it will be implemented.
Abude said the width of most streets in the city can only accommodate two to four lanes, particularly in downtown area.
However, Abude said that it can initially be implemented in the C.P. Garcia Highway and in the currently constructed Davao City Bypass Road in Buhangin and the Coastal Highway projects in portions of Bago Aplaya, Talomo and Matina Aplaya.
He also said that with the road widening projects, being made by the government through the Build, Build, Build Program, having bicycle lanes is possible.