Fortuna: Mandaue to heed call to ban tricycles in highways if …

THE Mandaue City government will heed the Department of Interior and Local Government’s call to ban tricycles and pedicabs from plying the national highways for safety reasons.

However, Mandaue City Vice Mayor Carlo Fortuna said that they would heed the call only after the city government could find another mode of transportation for commuters particularly those bound from the city proper to Barangays Paknaan, Cabancalan and Maguikay and vice versa.

“Yes, until we can provide an alternative transportation for the passengers for them to commute,” said Fortuna.

Glenn Antigua, Traffic Enforcement Agency in Mandaue (TEAM) operations chief, said that the city had 2,500 tricycles with franchises.

Antigua said that most of these tricycles were plying the national highways – the UN and ML Quezon Avenues.

Fortuna said that he had yet to discuss with Mandaue City Mayor Luis Gabriel “Luigi” Quisumbing about how they would regulate the operations of the tricycles so that they would not have to pass along national highways.

“The tricycles remain a necessary mode of public transport for that particular route, hence, it is allowed to ply for the time being,” he said.

The Cebu City government, however, has been strictly implementing the tricycle ban on highways.

Francisco Ouano, Cebu City Transportation Office (CCTO)chief, said in a phone interview on Friday that cases of pedicabs drivers and operators hailed for traversing through highways had already been rare.

“Here in Cebu City, pedicabs seldom drive through highways because we make sure that they only pass along barangay roads. Otherwise, we will apprehend them,” Francisco said in Cebuano.

Acting DILG Secretary Eduardo M. Año said in a news reports on Tuesday (Oct. 30) that for safety reasons, no tricycles or pedicabs should pass along national highways that were used by four-wheel vehicles greater than four tons and where normal speed would exceed 40 kilometers per hour.