EDITORIAL - The continuing folly of the city council

The Cebu City government is about to introduce bike lanes in city streets. And after describing a couple of road-sharing experiments as huge successes, might introduce road-sharing arrangements as well. These arrangements allow skateboarders, pet lovers, joggers, and just about anybody who wants to appropriate a portion of the road for themselves.

These developments are not novel. Some modern cities of the world already have them. But that does not mean Cebu City has to follow them to be counted among its ranks. For while Cebu City exists in this modern day and age, it does follow it is modern in the sense that these other cities are. Modernity and sophistication of a city are determined by a lot of factors such as population density management and urban planning, none of which Cebu City has.

We are not against bike lanes per se. We do not oppose them for the sake of opposing. But like the K to 12 program of the national government, there are good things that deserve proper timing to ensure success. Our point is that there are many old and existing ordinances all meant to address the same safety and congestion issues that have remained unimplemented. It is ridiculous to keep making new ones only to add them to the growing list of dead letter ordinances.

So why don't we seriously implement the existing ordinances first and see what happens before we make new ones for no other reason than we like the romantic ring to such terms as wellness and road sharing. Let us not allow certain councilors to succumb to pressure from lobby groups interested only in promoting their own hobbies at the expense of the general public, from whom they owe their mandate.

In case our city councilors have forgotten, there is an existing ordinance that sets aside a dedicated lane devoid of jeepneys. It is called a no-PUJ-lane. It would be interesting to find out if our present councilors are even aware such an ordinance exists. It might also be well to ask them if they are also aware of that ordinance banning vendors from occupying sidewalks.

These two existing ordinances pertain to the use of space for both vehicles and pedestrians and it might do well for them to consider them first before they embark on new ones such as road-sharing or bike lanes. Perhaps they are not aware of such ordinances because, as everybody knows, jeepneys run on all lanes of city streets and vendors have practically taken over all sidewalks, a fact exacerbated by the practice of some stores to cordon off sidewalks at night.

There are 100 million Filipinos in a 300,000 square-kilometer area. To enlighten the city council, this is how it looks -- we are a third of all Americans. But our land space is just that of Arizona, one of the 50 United States. If the modern city of Phoenix can have bike lanes and parks for skateboarding, jogging and walking pets, it is because it can. It doesn't follow we can too. Pagkahambugero lang gyud nato. Dili na man gani ta kagamit sa sidewalk, mag bike lane na hinuon.