Mandaue City eyes "corridor" for trucks

CEBU, Philippines – Citing the many trucks on the roads, Mandaue City traffic officials are now planning to put up a road "corridor" especially for trucks, in lieu of the truck ban implementation.

Florentino Nimor, executive director of the Traffic Enforcement Agency of Mandaue, said his office was eyeing as truck “corridor” the S. Osmeña Road in Cebu City and Ouano and Soriano Streets, and D.M Cortes to Cansaga Road in Mandaue City leading to Lapu-Lapu City.

"Mas maayo naay truck corridor pareha sa Metro Manila kay kung imo gung iurong, ang resulta ig buhi sa ban, traffic gihapon."

He said the truck “corridor” would first be a special lane for trucks during truck ban hours in most roads. If this proves successful, the ban will be lifted and all trucks will be allowed to use this special lane.

Nimor said the truck ban policy has proven to be effective in its own way as the trucks, because of their size, were one of the causes of heavy traffic. If these have their own lane, smaller vehicles can flow smoothly, he said.

Nimor admitted the truck ban is not enough solution to solve the congestion because it is only effective on special hours (6am-8am, 5pm-8pm), and Cebu City has no such ban, which means trucks are stuck somewhere when the ban is raised.

And when there are many trucks congregating in one place while waiting for the ban to be lifted chances are when they can go again, heavy traffic resulted, such as the case in Mandaue's streets.

"Ang traffic murag baha, mo-transfer lang to another place kung di nimo ayuhon og sulbad. Thats why citywide ang solution para ma-address tanan," Nimor said.

There are 330,000 vehicles plying Mandaue every day, and one-third of these are trucks, Nimor said, adding one-third of these are trucks.

"We're not limited to Mandaue. We went to Lapu-Lapu and talked to CTMS bahin sa truck ban para ma-synchronize, and suggested that we should provide a truck corridor," Nimor said.

He said that in Lapu-Lapu, not like Mandaue, there is a special road for trucks during hours when the ban is implemented. To keep the truck traffic going, even if the ban is on, the truck corridor would mean no congestion even after the ban hours, he added. (FREEMAN NEWS)