BAGUIO CITY – The leadership of the Baguio City Police (BCPO) said the put up of an additional pay parking facility which is one of the major component of the SM City Baguio mall expansion project will help ease the worsening traffic congestions in the central business district area and provide alternative parking for motor vehicle owners.
Senior Superintendent George D. Daskeo, BCPO City Director, said the additional 652 parking slots within the mall expansion project will result to several kilometres of roads being freed from illegally parked vehicles and will contribute to snowballing efforts to find ways and means to solve the traffic caused by the increasing volume of vehicles flocking to the city during weekends and holidays.
“The put up of the additional pay parking facility within the giant chain of malls will definitely provide a sigh of relief for vehicle owners because they will have alternative parking spaces once the main mall parking area will be filled up and it will also translate to more visitors flocking to the city because they know that they have areas where to park their vehicles so as not to congest our narrow streets,”Daskeo stressed.
The original mall parking area can accommodate a total of 771 motor vehicles at one time and with the additional 652 slots within the mall expansion project, the number of motor vehicles that can be accommodated in SM City Baguio will be at least 1,423 at one time.
The BCPO chief said what the city needs now is available multi-level parking spaces so that motorists will be compelled to park their vehicles in the said facilities to allow them to walk to their points of destination while enjoying the cool weather.
According to him, the availability of additional pay parking facilities aside from that offered by SM City Baguio will force law enforcers to strictly implement existing rules and regulations prohibiting the parking of motor vehicles along roads that will surely translate to better traffic flow in the different roads leading to the various tourist destinations.
The SM City Baguio mall expansion project that includes a component of a rain catchment basin, green architecture and the 652 available parking slots within its pay parking structure will be completed within the next three years.
He commended the SM management for making sure that one of its entrance will be along Gov. Pack road will definitely contribute in reducing the tremendous traffic congestions along Session road because mall goers will have an alternate route to take and park their vehicles in going to shop and dine inside one of the most visited places in the city.
It can be recalled that the Supreme Court (SC) excluded in its temporary restraining order the phase that cover the implementation of the mall expansion project while granting the prayer of the petitioners to maintain the validity of the TRO on the cutting of trees amidst the declaration of SM management that it will no longer cut trees when its mall expansion project will be in full swing considering that the project was already down sized.
Some 50 alnus and pine trees and saplings were affected when SM management attempted to pursue its mall expansion project several years ago and the management was ordered to plant 6,000 trees as compensatory requirement even as it promised to plant a total of 500,000 trees in a 10-year period. By Dexter A. See