Osmeña Says BRT Will Not Totally Solve Traffic

Former Cebu City congressman Tomas R. Osmeña strongly endorsed the establishment of the country’s first Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system to operate in the city, but he admitted that it cannot totally solve the existing traffic congestion.

It was Osmeña, during his incumbency as mayor of Cebu City, who initiated the project by asking help from the foreign government to make a feasibility study about the BRT system to be implemented in the Queen City of the South.

Osmeña and some other city officials even went to Bogota, Colombia and Curitiba in Brazil for them to personally observed the way how the BRT system operates. They had found out that it could help solve the rising traffic congestion problem in Cebu City.

The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) had already approved last May the establishment of the BRT system in Cebu under the public-private partnership (PPP) scheme.

BRT Routes

It was reported that the Cebu BRT system will have 176 buses that will ply through exclusive bus-ways from Bulacao to Talamban, with a possible link going to the South Road Property (SRP).

Rafael Christopher Yap, executive officer of the Cebu City Traffic Operations Management (CITOM), said the technical personnel are expected to start working for the engineering designs probably by next month.

Osmeña said the BRT alone cannot totally solve the traffic congestion problem throughout the city because the BRT routes only covers Bulacao road passing Natalio Bacalso Avenue, Osmeña Boulevard to Capitol, right turn to Escario, left turn to Archbiship Reyes Avenue then to Governor Mariano Cuenco Avenue to Talamban and vice versa.

The project would have 33 stations that cover a distance of 23 kilometers.

The official website of the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) reported that the buses will also traverse Cebu City’s business district, residential areas, shopping centers and key tourist sites and it will benefit 330,000 passengers a day when it starts operation in 2015.

DOTC Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya said the BRT systems around the world have been successful in mobilizing masses of people in dense urban settings, getting them to their destinations reliably through fixed schedules, efficiently through segregated lanes and priority passage, comfortably and safely through modern, well-equipped buses, and through relatively lower capital costs and maintenance expenditures.