A mass transit for Cebu? Make it happen now!

It truly was an interesting night last Monday evening at the Casino Español meeting with former mayor Enrique Peñalosa of Bogot, Colombia. During his term as mayor he was able to do a successful urban land reform, created new parks, wide sidewalks, bicycle paths and created Bogot’s version of the Stairless Bus system of the City of Curritiba - the TransMillenio. It was so successful in Bogot; it is now being duplicated in many other cities in Colombia.

Back in 1996, we had the opportunity to see this Stairless bus system work in the City of Curritiba, Brazil where we also met its creator former Curritiba Mayor Jaime Lerner, who at that time was the governor of the State of Parana (Brazil is a Federalized nation). Now that we met Mayor Peñalosa, I can say that I have met the two visionaries who turned their cities around with great ideas. Of course this doesn’t mean to say that we Filipinos cannot think of great ideas, our problem really is how to make those ideas come true!

What Mayor Peñalosa presented to us was nothing short of a radical approach to our long-standing problems. Perhaps because we have been focusing on the wrong things. This is why he first asked the question, “What kind of city do you want to live in?” He didn’t ask us, “What kind of mass transportation system do we want?” He puts a pro-people attitude to his ideas.

In a paper that he wrote, Mayor Peñalosa said, “The world’s environmental sustainability and quality of life depends to a large extent on what is done during the next few years in the Third World’s 22-Mega cities. There is still time to think different… there could be cities with as much public space for children as for cars, with a backbone of pedestrian streets, sidewalks and parks, supported by public transport.”

Mayor Peñalosa is a believer of more sidewalks and parks so people could enjoy and walk around in safety. But our urban planners have unfortunately planned our cities to accommodate cars, instead of public transportation that the majority of the population uses. Now you know where Mayor Tomas Osmeña comes from when he wants to ban private vehicles in certain times like rush hour. But Mayor Peñalosa agreed that before you can stop private vehicles from using the roads on certain times, you must first replace our current mass transit system, which is provided by the jeepney.

I fully agree with the mayor’s observation that Cebu needs a modern mass transit system. However, our urban planners, especially coming from Imperial Manila are thinking of putting up a Light Rail Transit (LRT) system for Cebu when the reality is, that system costs too much, takes too long to build (a minimum of five years) and doesn’t really solve our mass transportation problems. Worse of all, it is heavily subsidized, which means the poorer provinces that do not get anything still has to pay for it!

It is no secret that I’ve long wanted the Stairless Bus system for Cebu because it is much cheaper to do, it is faster to construct. It works in Curritiba and in Colombia and today it is being done in Brisbane. University of the Philippines Transport Studies professors told me that even Manila is thinking of using this system. So will Cebu beat Manila into coming up with a better mass transit system?

The whole thing depends on the first route for this system. During my short stint as CITOM chair, I planned to put a Stairless system from Guadalupe all the way down to Plaza Independencia and back. That plan meant the removal of the center island along Osmeña Blvd. But then the funding became the major issue, as Cebu City had to concentrate on the construction of the SRP.

But with the SRP finished, now is the right time to focus on something that we should have worked on 20 years ago, a mass transit system that would remove the jeepneys from the routes the buses would pass and put them into the feeder roads. For instance, Urgello Private Road will always need a jeepney to service the people who live there. Jeepneys will be used for the interior road network. The jeepney operators and drivers must be considered a part of the bus system, so they would be stakeholders of this future mass transit in Cebu.

The question remaining is whether or not this would happen in our lifetime. Right after World War II the venerable Tartanilla was replaced by the Jeepney, which in reality was a better idea than the Tartanilla. But 63 years after the war ended, there was no better idea that could replace the aging jeepney. I strongly believe that the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), which is now the generic term for the Stairless bus, is the right system for Cebu. Let’s focus on this and make it happen!