BAGUIO CITY – The city government announced the comprehensive study of the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) on the traffic situation in the city as well as the suggested and recommended solutions will be available in three months.
Mayor Benjamin B. Magalong said the MMDA team composed of traffic experts and traffic engineers had been frequenting the city over the past several months to gather pertinent data on the city’s traffic for further analysis, evaluation and validation prior to the finalization of the required comprehensive study.
He disclosed after the MMDA submits the comprehensive report, the same will be inputted to the authority’s traffic simulation software to generate the appropriate suggestions and recommendations on how to sustain the improvement of the prevailing situation in the different parts of the city, especially the congested central business district area.
The city chief executive admitted one of the major problems the city government is trying to solve is the huge volume of motor vehicles travelling along the different city and national roads in the city.
One of the 15-point collective agenda of the administration is aggressive traffic management considering the monstrous traffic congestions in different parts of the city, especially during peak hours.
Based on the data obtained from the Cordillera office of the Land Transportation Office (LTO-CAR), there are already over 64,000 private and public motor vehicles registered in the city as of the end of last year and this number could have increased as there is reported increase in the number of motor vehicles being registered in the city annually.
The city mayor expressed his gratitude to the MMDA Chairman Danilo Lim and the board for approving the grant of the study for free to the city amidst its projected cost that was pegged at over P1.5 million to help the city improve the traffic situation.
He also expressed the city government’s gratitude to the MMDA team of experts and engineers who frequented the city over the past several months just to complete the data required to finalize the comprehensive study that will serve as a basis for the city government to craft applicable traffic rules and regulations to ease the worsening traffic congestion around the city.
Baguio City was planned by American Architect Daniel Burnham to be good for only 25,000 inhabitants but the population of the city grew to as high as 367,000 based on the latest Census of Population conducted by the Commission on Population over 4 years ago.
The daytime population of the city reaches over 500,000 because of the presence of transient individuals like students, businessmen and people transacting business with the different government and private offices based in the city.
By Dexter A. See
Photo by Armando M. Bolislis
