BERSALES
Before I proceed to the main part of this article, let me welcome Dr. Christina Lee of Princeton University who is here in Cebu today to lecture on the topic “Archival Sources on the Santo Niño of Cebu,” at the University of San Carlos Museum.
A Korean-Argentine who has spent most of her academic and adult life in the US, Dr. Lee has written a number of books on Spanish colonial experience in the Americas and is here on a similar project in the Philippines.
Let me thank my dear friend Ino Manalo, the executive director of the National Archives of the Philippines, for hosting Dr. Lee’s stay in Cebu and for allowing the USC Museum the opportunity to continue to mark its 50th year with this lecture intended for researchers, archivists and historians.
The afternoon will be the turn of Director Ino who will present his findings on the archives of Boljoon Church in the lecture entitled, “Reading the Records and Retablo of Boljoon,” at 3 to 5 p.m. at the Virgilio Yap Memorial Chapel of the Archdiocesan (formerly Cathedral) Museum of Cebu, which is open to the general public and not just to researchers.
I am personally grateful to my dear friend Ino for graciously acceding to my request for him to do the lecture on short notice.
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Amidst the most certain opposition from heritage advocates and environmentalists on the possible impact of either the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) or the Metro Rail Transit, pe rhaps it is not too far-fetched to see if an elevated monorail system will be more feasible.
Assuming that the construction costs would be borne by a large private enterprise with deep pockets, such a system might calm heritage and environmental jitters.
The major advantage of an elevated monorail, one that will run the length of Danao to Minglanilla, for instance, is that it will not use too much of ground-level space the way an MRT or a BRT most certainly will because it runs only on a single rail.
All that one needs in constructing the guide railway is a series of single beams running the near 50-kilometer length, whereas both the MRT and BRT will probably require at least 6-to 10-meter “elbow room” for two rails or tracks to be constructed, whether at ground level, underground or even above ground, as is now obtaining in Metro Manila.
Constructing the MRT and BRT will most probably disrupt sections of Metropolitan Cebu for up to 12 months, requiring the diversion of traffic, assuming that these are built in the existing highway networks on Metro Cebu (for where else can it be constructed if the MRT, for example, will not go underground the whole time?).
Another advantage is that elevated monorails all over the world run on electricity and therefore do not contribute to harmful carbon emissions, although the source of electricity — in our case coal — will most certainly do.
The website www.railsystem.net spells out all other advantages, including the aesthetic (“hi-tech”) look of a monorail inasmuch as it always runs above ground and can be visible from a distance.
A major drawback, however, is that if the guide railways need maintenance, the entire monorail transit system will come to a standstill owing to having one single line all throughout. In Japan, however, there are monorail systems there now that interconnect with existing monorails heading to a different (not just opposite) direction.
Accidents with other transport systems are unheard of in monorails precisely because they run on a line dedicated only for its sole use, unlike the possibility of accidents when cars intersect with an MRT’s ground rails or a BRT’s line.
Another major drawback with a monorail is that if it stops in the middle of the rail away from a station, perhaps during an emergency, people cannot be easily evacuated because of the absence of any space outside of the railway.
One solution has been to provide evacuation chutes akin to those in commercial jets that can be inflated and allow passengers to slide down from the vehicle to the ground about 12 to 15 feet below.
The city of Mumbai in India has two monorail lines, which started in 2008. Seattle and Las Vegas also have monorail systems. Airports with two or more terminals, like those in Kansai International in Osaka, Japan, and the Da Vinci International in Rome, Italy, also have monorails to move passengers back and forth.
Maybe the time for the monorail has come for Cebu?