BAGUIO CITY – The city government is waiting for the arrival of traffic experts from the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) to conduct a comprehensive study on the traffic situation in the city and formulate recommendations on how to ease and remedy the traffic congestions that have significantly affected the growth of the local tourism industry.
Mayor Benjamin B. Magalong said the MDD team of traffic experts will arrive in the city by the end of this month to make the detailed study on the traffic situation to ascertain the appropriate solutions on how to ease such traffic jams.
He said the MMDA experts will bring along with them their traffic simulation software to gather data on the traffic flow along various roads around the city for them to come up with recommended solutions to the city’s traffic problem.
The city chief executive admitted one of the problems of the city government that cause the tremendous traffic congestions in most parts of the central business district is the huge volume of private and public vehicles plying the city’s streets daily.
One of the 15-point collective agenda of the present administration is to effectively and efficiently address the traffic congestions with the implementation of a modernized mass transport system beneficial to the needs of both residents and tourists alike.
Earlier, MMDA traffic experts came to the city last month to conduct the preliminary identification of the choke points in the city in preparation for the comprehensive study that can ground appropriate solutions to the traffic problem of the city.
Magalong said the results of the study will be assessed and evaluated by the city government which solutions to adopt to address the daily traffic woes of motorists.
One of the ongoing interventions to the prevailing traffic problem and the absence of sufficient parking spaces in the city is the construction of the 5-storey pay-parking building of SM City Baguio which is likely to be completed and eventually operational the soonest.
The aforesaid pay-parking structure can accommodate some 698 motor vehicles at one time which will have a significant impact in addressing the lack of parking spaces.
Based on the data obtained from the Land Transportation Office (LTO), there are over 56,000 registered motor vehicles in Baguio City as of December 2018 with only over 12,000 public utility vehicles and the rest are private motor vehicles.
Further, registered public utility vehicles dropped by 12 percent last year while the number of registered public utility vehicles increased by over 41 percent clearly indicating that the major contributor to the worsening traffic problem in the city are the private vehicles on the streets even with a single passenger.
The MMDA traffic experts will provide the city government with its detailed report on its findings and recommendations within several months after the completion of their data gathering through the aid of their traffic simulation software.
By Dexter A. See
Photo by: Armando M. Bolislis
