BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan urged owners of private lots surrounding the central business district area and private higher education institutions to open their open spaces for pay parking services for motor vehicles to cater to the influx of visitors during weekends and special holidays to help reduce the monstrous traffic jams along major streets in the city.
Domogan cited the city government and local residents were able to see the serious negative effects of the influx of visitors to the city during weekends as a result of the reduced travel time from the lowlands to the city for them to enjoy a good weekend break, thus, the need for the local government to adopt contingency measures, especially in the designation of available parking spaces in order to help reduce the volume of vehicles along the city’s roads at one time.
“We have to provide our motorists with sufficient pay parking spaces where they could park their vehicles while visiting their preferred destinations in the different parts of the city. We want our tourists to conveniently roam around the city and could avail of accessible parking spaces,” Domogan stressed.
Aside from the pay parking area in Burnham Park, the grounds of the Baguio City National High School (BCNHS) and the Quezon Elementary School, other possible pay parking areas include the parking spaces of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), the Saint Louis University (SLU), University of Baguio (UB), University of the Cordilleras (UC) and other private lots around the city’s central business district area.
He said the absence of sufficient parking spaces around the city is the complicating the city’s traffic problems that is why there is a need for the cooperation of private lot owners by allowing their available spaces to be used as temporary parking spaces for motor vehicles, especially during weekends where there will be expected influx of visitors coming from the lowlands.
On the other hand, the local chief executive pointed out there is also a need to study the merits of a proposal that visitors will be compelled to leave their vehicles in their lodging areas when going around the city, saying that visitors must be assured that public utility vehicles will be sufficient to cater to the transportation needs of tourists so that it will not be an added burden for them.
“Instead of enjoying their stay in our city, we might be disappointing our visitors if our public utility vehicles cannot cater to their transportation requirements so we must seriously consider the proposal to compel our visitors to leave their vehicles in their lodging houses when going around the city,” he said.
He recommended the conduct of a study whether or not the available public utility vehicles in the city will be able to cater to the transportation requirements of the expected huge volume of visitors during the weekends and at the height of special gatherings like the 20th edition of the Panagbenga so that we can convince the tourists to leave their motor vehicles in their lodging houses when going around the city to avoid monstrous traffic jams that would again affect the image of the city as a prime tourist destination.
By Dexter A. See