BAGUIO CITY – The city government’s traffic technical working group (TWG) announced that 67 of the 128 barangays have available spaces for pay parking in their respective areas of jurisdiction.
Engr. Richard Lardizabal, head of the Traffic and Transportation Management Division under the City Engineering Office (CEO) and a TWG member, said the barangays with sufficient areas for pay parking slots can accommodate some 805 vehicles, 57 motorcycles and 432 public utility jeepneys.
Earlier, the city government ordered an audit of the city’s barangays that have available spaces for pay parking purposes, especially for residents without available parking spaces in their compounds, to create orderly parking in the said barangays and smoothen the smooth flow of vehicles, particularly at night or during emergency situations.
He explained that the barangays with available parking spaces are those barangays with two-way flow of traffic and with sufficient road width that could accommodate the vehicles without contributing to the congestion in the said places.
The TWG recommended that vehicles allowed to park in the designated pay parking spaces in the aforesaid barangays will be charged P60 per day while the overnight rate will be pegged at P75 per vehicle with the city and the concerned barangay dividing the income on a 50-50 scheme.
Further, motorcycles will be charged P10 per day or P15 for overnight parking but the aforesaid rates will still depend on the amount approved by the City Council.
The results of the audit on available pay parking slots in the 67 barangays will be finalized then submitted to the city legislative body for the enactment of an ordinance to declare the specific roads in the barangays to be used for pay parking purposes, and the fees charged to users.
At present, the city government is aggressively implementing the anti-road obstruction order in all barangays in the city although some barangays passed ordinances governing the implementation of pay parking in their areas of jurisdiction.
The city government asserted it is best for the city to regulate the pay parking operations in the different barangays and only those surveyed to be feasible for pay parking will be the ones to be declared as such to avoid the complicating the traffic situation in the barangay.
One of the prevailing problems of the barangays in the city is the presence of numerous residents who have no parking spaces for their vehicles who often use the narrow roads for parking their vehicles further congesting traffic, especially during rush hours.
By Dexter A. See
