From road sharing to road suffering!
If there is anything going for traffic here in Cebu, it is that on Sundays, motorists do get a sort of reprieve from the usual heavy traffic during the weekdays. Indeed, it is a joy to ride around Cebu City on a Sunday when traffic is very light. This is what distinguishes Metro Cebu from the bad traffic in Metro Manila where there are no more rush hours!
However, during last Sunday's Green Loop road experiment or as they say a "road sharing" scheme hatched by the Movement for a Livable Cebu, things turned out worst for motorists because while the bikers or pedestrians did have a great time, those of us riding cars and jeepneys were cursing this road experiment. I got stuck from the back of Harold's Hotel on my way to my house, which normally would have taken me less than three minutes from that hotel. Last Sunday, it took me 30 minutes.
So what did the Cebuanos learn from that road sharing? Frankly speaking, it was good for those pedestrians and bikers, including skateboarders, but it was a "road suffering" for the majority of the Cebuanos who merely wanted a traffic-free Sunday. I will bet that if we had a referendum on whether that experiment worked for the majority of the Cebuanos, they would vote a big fat "no" because of the inconvenience that happened to them. Yes, I heard people say out loud inside the jeepneys that those bikers, joggers and skateboards ought to go to SRP where they belong!
If you ask me, those road experiments have gone too far. They experiment on our roads and declare it to be 100 percent successful from the organizer's viewpoint. But in the end they did not care what the rest of the motorists and their passengers thought about what they did! How dare them declare it to be successful when the rest of us got pissed! I dare say we should stop experimenting on our public roads. After all, the road belongs to all the people! I repeat, last Sunday's road sharing became a road suffering for many of us motorists. So we should demand equal time and equal suffering for all!
Still on road experiments, perhaps it is time for the Cebu City Traffic Operations and Management to tell us whether traffic has improved along the Banilad-Talamban (Ban-Tal) since they implemented their "no-left turn" policy. This traffic scheme has been there for months now and I dare say that there are flaws, which CITOM ought to look into seriously. But so far, CITOM has not been telling us anything! If you ask me, CITOM should inform the public whether or not this scheme was good for the traffic flaw.
I have already written about those flaws, but somehow our suggestions have fallen onto deaf ears. So allow me to repeat them here once more that if there are any facilities who have security guards specially assigned to help vehicles make a left-turn from their establishments, CITOM should allow these establishments to make a left-turn. A case in point: Crossroads, TinderBox and the Cebu Country Club. Come on guys, during rush hour when traffic is already snarled, the security guards of these establishments can politely ask motorists to stop so vehicles from their establishments can execute a left-turn without causing a traffic jam. Those motorists are courteous enough to allow those vehicles to make a left-turn because by doing so, they really do not add to the already snarled traffic up ahead!
But as I said, CITOM officials have failed to heed our suggestions. So when a vehicle who wants to make a left-turn from those establishments, CITOM in the end, forces these vehicles to go all the way to the flyover along Foodland area, which in effect only adds more vehicles to the already congested road. The key to the success of that experiment is for CITOM officials to listen to sound suggestions from motorists because if they do not listen to it, then what good is this experiment if they allow our roads to be clogged by vehicles that do not want to go to Talamban?
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Last Saturday, a good number of our friends in Opus Dei attended the beatification ceremony in Madrid, Spain for Bishop Alvaro Del Portillo, who took over the reins of Opus Dei when its founder, St. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer died. Two years ago, during the canonization rites for San Pedro Calungsod in Rome, I was given an opportunity to visit the Headquarters of Opus Dei (The Work) in Viale Bruno Buozzi and interviewed one of its members for my TV Show Straight from the Sky.
During that TV interview, I had a chance to visit the grave of St. Josemaria Escriva and that of Bishop Alvaro Del Portillo. A few years ago, Cebu was blessed when Bishop Del Portillo visited the Center for Technology and Enterprise in barangay San Jose, Cebu City, which is a school run by Opus Dei whose aim is to put poor, but talented and hard working students into technological jobs. Opus Dei is indeed blessed for having St. Josemaria Escriva made into a Saint and now his successor Bishop Alvaro Del Portillo has been declared blessed. Ave Maria!
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