To solve Mandaue’s traffic woes: Council OKs Luigi to sign MOU for monorail project

CEBU, Philippines - The Mandaue City Council has authorized Mayor Gabriel Luigi Quisumbing to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a Manila-based corporation for the conduct of a business case study for the implementation of a monorail system in the city.

The resolution authorizing Quisumbing to sign the (MOU) between the City Government and Philtram Transportation Consortium Inc. (PTCI), represented by its Chairman and President Mr. Domingo S. Peñaloza, was approved after no one objected to the report from the committee on transportation.

The PTCI, in cooperation with the China Railway Engineering Consulting Group, will undertake the study at its own cost.

In the three-page MOU, the corporation will also cover the analysis of the present and future trip generation/distribution; probable alignments; ridership levels and fares; preliminary design; related cost estimates; project viability assessment; and formulation of implementation plans; project financing, among others.

Also, there will be no bore holing or digging activities that may damage the roads.

Under the MOU, the city government will assign personnel as part of the Technical Working Group for coordination.

The City Hall personnel will also facilitate the field works, especially in public consultations, among others.

"If the study will conclude that the project is viable, and Philtram intends to proceed with the monorail project, under existing legal frameworks of the government, it may or may not, on its own volition, proceed with the next phase of the project development, which is the conduct of a Bankable Feasibility Study," read the MOU.

Last December 22, representatives from PTCI met with Quisumbing and Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña about the project.

A representative of the group said the monorail is the long-term solution for the traffic problem in the cities of Mandaue and Cebu and the whole of metro Cebu, since this has several advantages compared to the light rail transit (LRT) and metro rail transit (MRT). —/GAN (FREEMAN)