Osmeña Road to remain open despite major repair

UNDERSTANDING. Mayor Michael Rama cracks jokes while businessmen affected by the S. Osmeña Road project, and representatives from DPWH and WT Construction Inc. sign the Memorandum of Understanding.

Road works on S. Osmeña Road will finally start on Tuesday, March 18.

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama facilitated the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) led by project engineer Rogelio Macapobre on  the road project’s program of works.

With the MOU, the portion of six-lane S. Osmeña Road from the corner of Juan Luna Avenue to the corner of Gen. Maxilom Avenue will not  be totally closed.

“The project can now proceed after all issues have already been addressed,” said Citom executive director Rafael Yap.

Yap said that as agreed during their meeting held in  the mayor’s office late yesterday afternoon, the project’s contractor WT Construction Inc. will start the installation of road barriers and signs early Tuesday morning and before they start  scraping the cement layer from the north-bound land of S. Osmeña Road.

Rama met with project implementers and affected businessmen led by Chester Cokaliong, the CEO and COO of Cokaliong Shipping Lines Inc. at his office past 4 p.m. yesterday to discuss and later sign the MOU.

Other signatories  were Yusop Uckung, general manager of the Cebu Ports Authority; Willy Te of WT Construction Inc.; Chester Cokaliong; Yap; and vice mayor Edgar Labella.
Partial closure

The MOU states that road concreting works will start with the northbound lane of S. Osmeña Road located beside the CPA fence. DPWH will remove the layer of cement on the three-lane road and replace this with a new one.

Vehicular traffic using the northbound lane will be diverted to Baclig Street located inside the CPA compound.

While concreting works is ongoing, S. Osmeña’s southbound lane will remain open to vehicular traffic “and will only be touched after the first phase of the project (which is concreting of the northbound lane) is completed.”

“The Maxilom Avenue opening and Juan Luna Avenue opening shall serve as entry and exit points (of vehicles) at the discretion of the Cebu City Traffic Operations Management (Citom),” said the MOU.

Citom is also required to submit regular traffic monitoring reports “and direct the necessary adjustments to improve the traffic rerouting scheme, from the commencement of the project until its completion thereby ensuring safe ingress and egress to the diversion roads, including among others, Baclig Street.”

The MOU mentions of the need for the signatories to convene after WT Construction completes concreting of the northbound lane of S. Osmeña Road especially for traffic impact assessment.

“The above-named parties are strictly obliged to observe the provisions of this Memorandum.  Nothing herein provided shall be deemed a waiver of the parties’ respective rights, powers and mandates under existing laws,” said the MOU.

During their meeting, Rama told DPWH and the contractor that they begin with the project today.  But they expressed their desire to instead start on Tuesday to give way to traffic congestion because of the ongoing sale at SM Mall and the official start of court operations at the Qimonda Building on Monday.