THE Cebu City Council wants to know the status of the city’s planned Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system.
City Councilor James Anthony Cuenco, transportation committee chairman, said representatives of the Department of Transportation (DOTr), the agency in charge of the BRT project in Cebu City, are scheduled to appear before the council next week.
Cuenco said the council will ask about the final design of the project and its detailed timeline.
The BRT design was supposed to be completed in September 2020.
Cuenco said he has not been informed whether the target date has been met by the DOTr.
Cuenco said the council also wants updates on the total project cost, the road right-of-way acquisitions, BRT terminals and stops and auxiliary transportation to and from the BRT terminals.
In September, Cebu City North District Rep. Raul del Mar called on the DOTr and the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) to continue with the BRT project, a mass transport system believed to bring an end to Cebu’s traffic woes.
“I appeal to the Department of Transportation and officials of Neda, which oversee these projects funded by the World Bank and Agence Francaise de Developpement, to push the Cebu BRT project from where it has been stuck -- on the slow bureaucratic lane,” said del Mar in an official statement.
The DOTr in September, in an interview with SunStar Cebu, said a review of the project’s detailed engineering design was still ongoing.
Phase one of the BRT project from the Cebu South Bus Terminal to the Provincial Capitol was expected to partially operate by December 2021.
While phase two which will stretch from Bulacao, Talisay City, to Talamban, Cebu City, was originally scheduled to be completed in March 2022.
The P16-billion BRT project spans 39.88 kilometers, including the length of the feeder lines which extend all the way to Talisay City.