Cabreros Street, near the boxed area in the map, will be closed to traffic for a month starting Wednesday (August 29).
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/CCTO
MAMBALING UNDERPASS PROJECT UPDATE
Yesterday (Wednesday), Melinda Dayuday had no choice but to walk from her house in Barangay Basak-San Nicolas to N. Bacalso Avenue in Barangay Mambaling due to heavy traffic in the area.
Dayuday, 35, said the traffic on N. Bacalso, where the P638-million Mambaling underpass is being constructed, was slightly heavier. This is because Cabreros Street was closed to traffic.
“Karon kay sirado naman, mapugos gyud mig lakaw (We’re forced to walk because Cabreros Street is closed),” said Dayuday.
Cabreros Street is just one of the many access roads to N. Bacalso Avenue used by vehicles bound to Talisay City from downtown Cebu City.
Engineer Roy Dela Cruz, project engineer from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH-7), said they decided to close the two-lane access road to pave the way for more bored piling works of the multimillion underpass.
Dela Cruz said it would take up to a month for Cabreros Street to be closed starting on Wednesday (August 29).
“We’re around 75 to 77 percent from completion … We decided to close Cabreros Street from traffic because our bored piling have reached there,” said Dela Cruz.
The Mambaling underpass project is currently in its fourth phase of construction, which is targeted to be completed by March 2019. Phase 4 involved bored piling, or laying down the underpass’ foundation, on the northbound lane of N. Bacalso Avenue.
Presently, only one lane of N. Bacalso’s southbound and northbound lanes is open to traffic, prompting vehicles, including public utility jeepneys (PUJs) to use the access roads such as Cabreros, E. Sabellano, Tagunol, and F. Llamas Streets.
With Cabreros closed, Cebu City Transportation Office (CCTO) chief Francisco Ouano advised motorists to continue to be more patient with the project nearing completion.
Ouano also said they decided to continue using the current traffic scheme, where northbound vehicles use one lane of N. Bacalso Avenue.
Meanwhile, those bound for the south will take Tagunol Street, and return to the highway in Barangay Pardo, which is located approximately four kilometers away from Barangay Mambaling.
“We observed that the traffic will get worse if we implement a new traffic plan, or make some changes in it, because motorists will get disoriented,” he said.