MMDA urges tricycle operators to upgrade to four-stroke engines

When officials of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) led by Chairman Bayani Fernando were in Hanoi, Vietnam last week, what impressed them the most was the city’s efficient motorcycles.

"They’re so many and yet you wouldn’t hear any single noise or smoke coming from any of them," Fernando said yesterday in the agency’s weekly radio show on DzBB.

Even business executives in suits ride motorcycles to work, Fernando said.

He said he wished the same could be said of tricycles in Metro Manila and the rest of the country.

Upon his return, Fernando immediately met with Ariel Lim, president of the nationwide Tricycle Drivers and Operators Association, to encourage their members to upgrade their tricycles and turn them into more environment- and public-friendly machines.

The MMDA once again urged the tricycle drivers to change their two-stroke engines into the government recommended four-stroke engines.

MMDA Traffic Operations Center (TOC) Executive Director Angelito Vergel de Dios also advised drivers yesterday to put back the mufflers of their tricycles which, for some strange reasons, they normally remove.

Vergel de Dios explained that the missing mufflers is the reason why tricycles are very noisy.

"The mufflers were placed there by the manufacturers for a reason. Hindi ko rin maintindihan bakit tinatanggal. Sabi ng iba, para bumilis ang takbo pero hindi naman ganun yun (I don’t understand why they have to remove it. They said it is supposed to make the engine faster but it doesn’t work that way)," Vergel de Dios said.

Fernando added that contrary to what many drivers and operators think, the government will not phase out tricycles.

Last January, thousands of tricycle drivers and operators staged a rally in Mendiola against MMDA’s resolution urging local government units to stop issuing new franchises to tricycles with two-stroke engines.

The government discourages two-stroke engines because they have lower fuel efficiency, which worsens air pollution. — Nikko Dizon