Tom back from US tomorrow

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña will be back in Cebu tomorrow after his two-week trip to the United States for a health checkup and visits.

Osmeña, in a text message sent to The FREEMAN, said he is arriving on the 14th but did not specify what time. The mayor spent the last two days of his trip in Los Angeles visiting his son Miguel.

Prior to his checkup he visited two cities in Colombia, upon the invitation of former Bogota Mayor Enrique Peñalosa to further observe the implementation of the Bus Rapid Transit system. 

“Bogota was a refresher course from my initial exposure of the BRT in Brazil, it is best to have it also in Cebu City,” Osmeña said.

The legwork of different studies geared for the feasibility and successful implementation of the BRT in Cebu City are to finish prior to the end of 2009.

The World Bank through the Private Public Infrastructure Advisory Facility is implementing a feasibility study on BRT with a funding of $335,000.

The WB-PPIAF study will identify a concept leading to a preferred option for a potential Cebu demonstration BRT corridor which can be used as the first step in introducing a city-wide formal public transport system for Cebu.

On the other hand, another study by the Department of Transportation and Communication will concentrate on analyses on a metro-wide scale in order to understand how different mass transport links and routes may be envisioned in the future. The DOTC study is budgeted at P32 million.

A BRT is like the Light Rail Transit but with buses plying the routes instead of trains. It will cut through the cities of Talisay, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu towards the heart of the South Road Properties.

So far only Mandaue City had expressed its interest to take part in the said transport system.

The New York Times recently featured Bogota’s BRT, the TransMilenio, as the concrete answer to the policy direction of decreasing CO2 emissions from transport to address climate change.

“Now used for an average of 1.6 million trips each day, TransMilenio has allowed the city to remove 7,000 small private buses from its roads, reducing the use of bus fuel — and associated emissions — by more than 59 percent since it opened its first line in 2001, according to city officials,” the New York Times article stated.

In recognition of this feat, TransMilenio last year became the only large transportation project approved by the United Nations to generate and sell carbon credits. Developed countries that exceed their emissions limits under the Kyoto Protocol, or that simply want to burnish a “green” image, can buy credits from TransMilenio to balance their emissions budgets, bringing Bogota an estimated $100 million to $300 million so far, analysts say. — Ferliza C. Contratista/BRP (THE FREEMAN)