BAGUIO CITY – The Summer Capital has hosted more than 1.5 million foreign and domestic visitors during the Christmas and New Year breaks that resulted in tremendous traffic jams in almost all parts of the city over the past several days.
Anthony de Leon, President of the 25-member Hotel and Restaurant Association of Baguio (HRAB) and General Manager of the Baguio Country Club, said all their members and the over 700 transient houses in the city’s 128 barangays were fully booked from December 15, 2014 up to January 4, 2015 which is a clear indication that the city’s tourism industry has bounced back and regained its momentum.
“People had flocked to Baguio City primarily because of its cool and romantic weather coupled with the significantly reduced travel time from Metro Manila up to the city because of the partial opening of the Rosales to Urdaneta City section of the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEX), de Leon stressed.
He pointed out that because of the influx of a bigger volume of visitors which was unexpected, monstrous traffic jams all over the city were experienced by local residents and visitors which irked some of them and caused the posting of negative comments in the various social networking sites.
“We did not expect such a huge volume of foreign and domestic visitors although most of our hotels and inns were already fully booked since the middle part of this year,” de Leon said.
Superintendent Evilio Degay, Chief of the Traffic Management Branch of the Baguio City Police Office (BCPO) admitted the volume of vehicles that are plying the city’s streets have almost tripled compared to ordinary work days, thus, congestions were experienced in roads leading to key tourist destinations such as the Camp John Hay (CJH) area, Philippine Military Academy (PMA), Mines View Park, Botanical Garden, Burnham Park, Lourdes Grotto and the La Trinidad Strawberry Fields in nearby La Trinidad, Benguet.
“We had to work for extended hours in order to ensure the smooth flow of traffic along our major roads although it was very difficult to do so considering that the volume of vehicles that came up almost tripled compared to the number of vehicles plying our major routes during ordinary days,” Degay stressed.
He said even policemen on duty in the different stations of BCPO were tapped to help address the traffic congestions in the major roads to ease the burden of local residents and visitors of being trapped for several hours on their way from their residences and lodging houses to their desired tourist destinations.
Degay said the volume of vehicles playing the roads of Metro Manila were somewhat transferred to the city during the Yuletide break because of the significantly reduced travel time from the previous six-hour travel from Metro Manila to Baguio and vice versa to only three and a half hours.
Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan disclosed there was an abnormal volume of vehicles and tourists that flocked to the city during the Yuletide breaks which is a clear indication that the city is still one of the preferred tourist destinations in the country.
He directed the members of the BCPO traffic branch to be patient in addressing the tremendous traffic jams in the city’s central business district area and roads leading to tourist destinations in order to prevent altercations that may arise among motorists which would result to the occurrence of untoward incidents.
Baguio was designed by American Architect Daniel Burnham to be good only for a 25,0000 inhabitants but through the years, its population grew to around 321,000 as of the 2010 national census. However, its daytime population could reach as high as 700,000 because of the students and individuals from different provinces transacting their respective businesses in the city during the day while its night time population goes back to only 321,000 during the night.
By Dexter A. See
