Serious traffic woes ahead in Mandaue

CEBU, Philippines - As the P400 million road projects and flyover retrofitting in Mandaue City have kicked off, Traffic Enforcement Agency of Mandaue (TEAM) director Edwin Ermac advised motorists to decide on their own on which roads to take to avoid experiencing heavy traffic.

"We are anticipating very serious traffic congestion during the repair of the seven projects that will involve major roads in Mandaue City," Ermac said.

Ermac believes it would be best if motorists and drivers are left alone in deciding which ways to pass, rather than imposing one designated way for them.

One of the projects involves the retrofitting of the Maguikay flyover, which will run for 90 calendar days.

Ermac said before and during the retrofitting, people should consider the time of truck ban hours to avoid heavy traffic.

"Take advantage of the truck ban from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. During truck ban, medyo lull ang traffic. Kanang orasa, gituyo na nato because we are expecting large volume of vehicles; ang mga estudyante padong sa klase, ug ang mga empleyado sab padong sa ilang opisina," he said.

Problem

For him, the flyover's retrofitting on the vertical clearance would discourage big vehicles to pass because it would somehow destroy the scaffolding.

"It is open for light vehicles but those big vehicles, ang problema lang ana nila is the vertical clearance. Those which cannot surpass the vertical clearance, okay ra makaagi. Ilang height (vehicles) dapat dili molapas sa scaffolding kay maguba unya," Ermac said.

Aside from the flyover retrofitting, TEAM has been having a hard time monitoring the flow of vehicles on AS Fortuna Street also because of an ongoing road project. 

Not yet started

Ermac said that the retrofitting was supposed to start last February 14, but still no work has started just yet.

However, DPWH project engineer Eda de Guzman confirmed yesterday that retrofitting on the flyover already started. She added that contractors of the retrofitting project already started working, but only in the contractors' yard.

"They (contractors) already started working but gi-fabricate lang sa ilang yard," de Guzman said.

Timeline

Another project engineer Myrna de la Cerna said they were given a timeline to complete the road projects.

To effectively implement the projects, they would coordinate with TEAM before implementing  them to further control the traffic on the areas where the project is carried out.

Meanwhile, TEAM's solution to the heavy traffic experienced due to the road projects was to closely monitor the area and to advice their personnel to do more frequent reporting.  (FREEMAN)