Planning takes time

It seems what is taking up some space in our news these days is the seemingly worsening traffic situation in the metropolis. Not that it is something unusual all over the world; traffic congestion is always a concern and will always come out in the news. This is because traffic is actually a waste of time as I have written sometime before. If we could get to our offices, or schools, in an instant, and get home in the afternoon in the blink of an eye, what a wonderful world it would be. But sadly not.

Unfortunately, not only does planning transportation infrastructure take time, but these are also done far in between. When was the last time we had some major roadworks in Metro Cebu? The really major ones were done so long ago, during the Metro Cebu Development Project (MCDP) days. That’s more than two decades ago. The other major project which can superbly boost our mobility is the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), which was also initiated decades ago. Hopefully, the buses will start running next year.

Metro Cebu is actually easier to plan, relatively, because it is almost entirely linear in its transport lines, from south-west to north-east, and vice versa, crossing roads in between. The MCDP projects, which only few people remember nowadays, were mostly road projects, improving major intersections we use nowadays. The Cebu South Coastal Road (CSCR) which passes through the South Road Properties (SRP) was a major one connecting the south to the center of Metro Cebu and on to the north and Mactan. But after MCDP, what other road projects are planned? This is the reason we get bumper-to-bumper traffic at the CSCR every afternoon.

The hindrance is there are no coordinated planning activities at the metropolitan level nowadays. No, I’m not batting for a separate “Metro Cebu” as some quarters did, and in fact, I’m really against that idea. But there must be some sort of coordination among the local government units of Metro Cebu, to have some major projects to happen. The MCDP had a metropolitan scope connecting cities and their people. Spearheaded by former mayor Tommy Osmeña, it changed the landscape of Metro Cebu to what it is now. Unfortunately, nobody assumed the cudgels after him, or really, nobody could. Maybe, Nestor Archival could. I’ve worked with him, and I am very positive he could go to great lengths to improve not only Cebu City, but Metro Cebu as a whole. Transportation does not respect borders and its conditions, good or bad, cut across political borders. But you need someone who knows and understands how it works and I’m sure, as an engineer, Archival can.

But again, it takes time. I remember when we first started looking at MCDP before, it took a while before the projects happened. We have to plan now. Unfortunately, no one does, nowadays, nothing in the works is lined up with the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA). That just shows that no one in Cebu City is churning out projects the way they were done before. The litmus test is NEDA --if we don’t have projects in there, that means we’re in for a bad future.