CEBU - The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) has agreed to study the proposal of the transport groups in Cebu for a moratorium on the issuance of franchises by the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB).
Richard Cabucos, president of the Metro Cebu Taxi Operators Association said that the government specifically the DOTC and LTFRB should have the political will to implement the moratorium due to the plan of Cebu City and other neighboring towns and cities to adopt the Bus Railway Transit system.
“Maayo unta nga naay political will ang gobyerno nga ilaha nang undangon ang pagpangisyu ug prangkisa sa mga PUVs para ang mga negosyante dili mahinayak og invest sa pagpamalit og mga bag-ong sakyanan,” Cabucos said.
Once the BRT system will be in place in Metro Cebu, jeepneys, taxis and other public utility vehicles will be gradually phased out while some will only be allowed to ply secondary routes.
Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogota, Colombia, an expert in the BRT system, said that in his country only 30 percent of the public utility vehicles were taken off the streets when the system was implemented. This was back in 1998 to 2001. The remaining vehicles now play the secondary routes.
He said that Colombia has the most successful BRT system in the world.
Peñalosa said that it may take 20 years to phase out the public utility vehicles.
On a bright note, he said that some of the bus operators became shareholders of the BRT system and those drivers who lost their jobs became bus drivers with better pay and better health insurance.
“People would have natural resistance to change. For a modern Philippines and for a modern city, we need change. We must not just look that drivers will be jobless but instead view it entirely on how many jobs will be created because of the BRT and how it will improve the city economically,” Peñalosa said.
The Colombian official was in town upon the invitation of the Cebu City government to talk before the various stakeholders.
DOTC project manager II Eleuterio Galvante Jr. said that the department’s study on BRT in Metro Cebu will start on January.
Jose Regin Regidor, director of the National Center for Transportation Studies of the University of the Philippines said that the establishment of a BRT system is most likely appropriate for a mass transportation in Metro Cebu.
Regidor said that based on initial assessment, a BRT system would cost between $5to $10 million per kilometer as compared to the Light Railway Transit which is $10 to $30 million per kilometer or to a subway which costs $50 to $100 million per kilometer.
“We will have a specific study on the aspect how the BRT system will be managed especially the jeepney sector,” Galvante added.
Nigel Paul Villarete, city planning and development officer and in-charge of the Cebu City BRT Project, hopes that everyone will be agreeable on the project as it is aimed for the city to be modernized and competitive.
The BRT study alone cost P16 million and it is funded by the DOTC and a steering committee has been formed.
Villarete added that the city, as part of its continuing efforts in addressing urban pressures which are inevitable companions to urban growth, is cooperating with the national government and other development organizations in developing a BRT system.
The city had already conducted an orientation seminar on this matter which aimed to provide the participants and stakeholders of the proposed BRT system with the basic information of what the new system really is, its peculiar components and description and how it may help the future urban transport needs of the city.
The BRT system is envisioned to be a more feasible mode of public transportation.
A BRT system works like the train system but uses buses instead of a train and passengers pay at the designated bus stops. – Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon/NLQ (THE FREEMAN)