CENTER islands and traffic lights in the middle of the highway will be removed in order to reduce traffic congestion for drivers going to and from northern Cebu via Mandaue City.
In a meeting at the Capitol on Monday, March 11, Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes shared this information with Governor Gwen Garcia.
Chief Gumer Castillo of the DPWH Sixth Engineering District and Brando Ryan, the DPWH 7 legal officer, were also present.
The removal of center islands and traffic signals at the intersection of MC Briones Street and UN Avenue, just in front of the Pacific Mall in Barangay Maguikay, will add more lanes on each side of the national road, improving the area's traffic flow.
“There are certain mga islands, mga traffic lights nga atong i-relocate. I-relocate para ang volume sa atong traffic sa intersection mapadak-an, mapalapdan nato ang intersection,” Cortes told Sugbo News.
Currently, there are just two lanes on either side of MC Briones leading to Consolacion town.
Mayor Cortes anticipates that drivers using the aforementioned road will notice an improvement as a result of the modification and the use of underutilized roads adjacent to MC Briones.
Meanwhile, Engr. Castillo stated that the DPWH Sixth Engineering District will apply asphalt overlay to hasten the completion of road construction in Mandaue City in accordance with a resolution passed by the Provincial Development Council (PDC) on March 6.
The PDC, presided over by Governor Garcia, passed a resolution requesting the DPWH, which is working on projects in Cebu, to alter project plans and choose asphalt overlay over concreting, particularly for roads that are deemed to be in good condition.
Mayor Cortes welcomed the move since asphalt overlay work is faster compared to the concreting projects.
The DPWH has several asphalting projects lined up along the Central Nautical Highway in Mandaue City, starting from barangays Tipolo and Jagobiao down to nearby Consolacion town.
“Mao sad nay tuyo nato nga mga projects nga dali mahuman kay tungod ang (We want projects to be completed right away because) Mandaue is the corridor of Metro Cebu,” Mayor Cortes said.
“We cannot afford to implement projects nga tagdugay kaayo, tagpila ka buwan, kay you know negosyo ang panginabuhi sa atong mga kaigsuonan sa ilang trabaho. Dili ta ka afford nga ang Mandaue mao nay chokepoint sa Metro Cebu sa trapiko,” he added.
(We cannot afford to implement projects that will take several months to complete, because as you are aware, our brothers have businesses as their source of income. We cannot allow Mandaue to become into a major traffic bottleneck in Metro Cebu). (TPT WITH PR)