Why not revive the south diversion road?
I would like to quote just a line from whatever little I remember of Desiderata. That was decades ago when I first read the poem. In all likelihood a part of my wasted youthful energy must have erased a great portion of my memory. I do not also want to read again the text either from a hard copy which I must have stacked somewhere or from the Internet because I am afraid to realize how much of it have I forgotten already.
Anyway, the line that I wish to recall says something like this: "Even the dull and the ignorant, they, too have their story."
Let me acknowledge my being dull in the ways of government planning and profess my ignorance to determine what is good for the public. Having said that, I rely upon Desiderata to say this piece on my insignificant idea to help point out a way to address our increasing traffic problem.
The last time government opened a road here in Metro Cebu was in the 1990s. That is, again, assuming my recollection is correct. A generation has since passed and no public funds had been invested for such kind of infrastructure. Consequently, with the exponential growth of the number of vehicles running on our road networks, this monstrous problem that people call as traffic jams has been our daily specter.
For people to travel from the northern part of the province, like Consolacion town to Minglanilla, its southern counterpart, it is horrible to wiggle through Mandaue and Cebu Cities. The existing roads connecting these two points pass thru these cities. To be sure, the distance between Consolacion and Minglanlla covers roughly just 28 kilometers of flat land. It is much shorter compared to the distance between Barangay Busay, Cebu City and the municipality of Balamban, where the road has long stretches of steep ascent and descent spread within the distance of about 34 kilometers. But, believe me it is a much faster trip of about 40 minutes to drive from Busay to Balamban than negotiating the Consolacion-Minglanilla route that should take us more than two hours.
Why do I talk about Consolacion and Minglanilla? In these two places, we find an increasing number of residential subdivisions being developed in the last few years. This is a clear demography. Because these are residences that have sprouted lately, the residents must have their work in the cities such that they always travel to and from the cities daily.
In a plan Cebu City made decades ago, there was a South Diversion road. On one end, it targeted the hilly part of Candulawan, Talisay (then a municipality) and cut across the hills behind Barangays Busay and Guadalupe and unto a point not far from A.S. Fortuna, in Mandaue City. That plan can be revived with a little modification.
Instead of starting off A.S. Fortuna, it should be re-worked as to target the converging areas of Barangays Talamban and Kabankalan.
Engineers will not find planning the route problematic. Unlike in times past when they solely rely upon maps, some of which were either inconclusive or flawed, in choosing the sites where roads may be built, today they employ the detailed information available from satellite communications. In fact, even before conducting a technical survey, they have the luxury of going to any tall building in the middle part of the city to view the landscape and visualize where to build the south diversion road.
At the top of such building, they will see how roads, appearing like veins, are constructed on the hills of Tisa, Busay and Guadalupe. The south diversion road can take these new networks into consideration.
That is the dull and ignorant in me suggesting to brilliant minds another possible way to solve our traffic problem. This is a solution the local government can do quite unlike my previous proposals (a) putting a limit to car ownership by private individuals, (b) disallowing the entry to our country of such useless things as Multicabs and surplus engines, which only Congress can legislate.
If the city finds the cost exceedingly high, as I believe it is, it can ask for help from national leadership. We have Cebuanos who have overstayed in Congress. If only to demonstrate their love for our city, they can use their connections to make sure that initial funds can be generated for this purpose. Perhaps, this is one accomplishment we, the voters, can be proud of.
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