Potholes and bad traffic go together

More than a week ago, the Department of Engineering and Public Works in Cebu City announced they will work overtime to fix all the potholed roads in Cebu City before the end of the year and we lauded them for making this announcement. But from the way things are going. I seriously doubt they can deliver on what they announced to the media, firstly because a day after making that announcement, I only saw one engineering equipment running on the road. Then came typhoon Urduja, which brought rains to Cebu City and if and when another expected typhoon enters the Philippine Area of Responsibility then these give our city engineers enough excuses for not meeting their self-imposed deadlines.

This is the problem of our bureaucrats in Cebu City Hall, they try to do things they think that they can do, but in the end, they just can't hack it. In fairness to Mayor Tomas Osmeña, he didn't make any such announcements so when DEPW fails to deliver on their statements, we cannot blame Osmeña for their failures. But with the year ending very soon, we can only hope that Osmeña has some kind of an "Asphalt Storm Revival" to start the new year right by fixing our very badly broken roads.

I've been apprised of plans to fix the roads where the Sinulog Grand Parade will pass, but most of these are national roads and are in good condition. What we need to fix are our inner city roads like Juana Osmeña St. and Juana Osmeña Ext., which has slowed traffic to a crawl. Yes, if you didn't know, when our roads are badly broken, motorists cannot or do not drive fast and it adds to the already bad traffic that we are having.

Speaking of bad traffic, I know that most people simply complain about how bad traffic has become in Metro Cebu. But I dare say that bad traffic isn't only the problem of a lousy traffic management, but it is mainly caused by the fact that there are so many uncaring motorists who stop their vehicles on the side of the street, turn on their emergency signal lights, and do their thing regardless of the traffic building up behind them.

This was a problem when I was running things in CITOM 17 years ago and apparently the attitudes of most motorists haven't changed, that's because our legislators didn't put up laws that would scare these motorists from doing what is deemed illegal. I dare say that it is time for the Cebu City Council to come up with a heavy local ordinance (by this I mean, a minimum fine of P5,000 for the first violation) penalizing motorists who use their emergency lights even when they are not in an emergency situation, and abuse it to do illegal parking.

Mind you, this is one traffic violation that is easy to spot because the offender's vehicles would be blinking while they are illegally parked. Let's see who among our city councilors (I don't care if you are Team Rama or BOPK) will sponsor such an ordinance so that we can finally get rid of those motorists who park illegally and turn on their emergency lights.

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Today, Pres. Rodrigo "Digong" Duterte will sign into law the 2018 national budget and the tax reform measure a.k.a. the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) bill, to be held at 2 p.m. in Malacañang Palace. The P3.7-trillion budget for the fiscal year 2018 was ratified in the Senate and House of Representatives last week and the TRAIN Bill is expected to generate P130 billion in additional revenues that would fuel the Duterte administration's "Build, Build, Build" infrastructure program.

So before things get better traffic would have to get worse! But one infrastructure project that won't be disturbing the traffic is the up and coming third bridge project of the Cebu Cordova Expressway Link Corp. (CCLEX) which had its ceremonial awarding of contract at the Waterfront Hotel last Thursday. CCLEX is subsidiary of Metro Pacific Tollways Corp., the toll arm of the Metro Pacific Investment Corp. of the MVP Group of Companies. This project doesn't affect any major or minor roads, as it is a new roadway that they are constructing.

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