Council decides on CITOM rerouting today

Today's special session of the city council may determine whether the re-routing scheme at the vicinity of the Redemptorist Church will continue.

The council had earlier set the special session to deliberate the validity of the re-routing scheme considering that the City Traffic Operations Management implemented the new scheme without authority from the city council.

Councilor Sylvan Jakosalem said CITOM has already submitted to the city council its evaluation on the outcome of the re-routing scheme and the same will be subject to discussion today. Jakosalem himself expects an "interesting" discussion on the issue especially that Councilor Joy Pesquera earlier labeled the implementation illegal.

Jakosalem said the report also contains the various position papers from those affected by the re-routing scheme with majority of those disagreeable to it commenting that while the re-routing declogged the traffic in the Redemptorist Church area, it reportedly inadvertently transferred the same to surrounding areas like the Juana Osmeña Street and General Maxilom Avenue.

Likewise, some pointed out that the sales of stalls at the St. Patrick's Square and Foodarama have decreased, that it has caused inconvenience to those living in the area and that the bottleneck of traffic was transferred to Juana Osmeña Street from Gutianuy Street.

The scheme is also reportedly burdensome to motorists who are now compelled to pass through General Maxilom Avenue to be able to reach the Redemptorist Church area.

In an earlier report, CITOM apologized for not having informed the city council of the implementation, yet it maintained that it did not violate any existing rules when it implemented the scheme.

CITOM believes that it did not have to comply with the requirements of City Ordinance 1973 "because the installation of the traffic signs on the subject areas was originally made by the traffic engineer pursuant to the authority under City Ordinance No. 801 and not pursuant to the powers vested upon CITOM as provided for under City Ordinance No. 1264 as amended by City Ordinance No. 1973".

The city council would have wanted CITOM to submit its report last month but the traffic group asked for an extension, saying a survey and evaluation of the scheme would be more thorough when done after classes start.