EDITORIAL - BRT perspective deceptive

The local newspapers last Saturday ran photos depicting an artist's rendition of how the Bus Rapid Transit or BRT would look like on Osmeña Boulevard. In the rendition, the center island on the boulevard was removed and the two lanes next to it used as dedicated lanes for the BRT.

By itself, the picture looks convincing enough, especially since it was probably taken on a Sunday when traffic is sparse. In the picture, one can count only about 20 vehicles with plenty of room to spare from what is left of the boulevard minus the two lanes taken away for the BRT.

But as every Cebuano or visitor to Cebu knows, the picture portrayed is nowhere near what the reality is on Osmeña Boulevard on any given working day. The boulevard and its six to eight lanes (it is uneven, it narrows in some parts) is actually bursting at the seams already.

Now, consider taking away two lanes for the exclusive use of the BRT (look at the photo and there is only one bus traipsing its merry way along the two lanes that stretch all the way to Kingdom Come — space that could have accommodated other traffic) and chaos is in the works.

Yet we are talking only about that stretch of Osmeña Boulevard from Fuente to P. del Rosario. Beyond that stretch in either direction, the boulevard technically ceases to be one and becomes an ordinary street of very limited capacity, like the rest of the streets in the city.

It is very obvious that given the existing road network, which cannot anymore be expanded or widened, there is simply no room in the city for the BRT. To keep pushing this pipe dream is a waste of everybody's time. Hopefully, only time will be wasted.

But we fear we may waste more than just time. Mayor Tomas Osmeña is bent on pushing the BRT come hell or high water. Even if he is no longer mayor, he can still call the shots from where the fates may take him.

Despite the well-meaning opposition to his plan and the presence of other, more viable, alternatives such as the LRT, Osmeña continues to insist on the BRT. The BRT will not work in a city like Cebu. So is there something we do not know?