THE approval of Cebu City’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project will not stop the city government from pursuing other modes of mass transportation that is expected to improve the city’s traffic situation.
Mayor Michael Rama who arrived form his week-long trip to Singapore said yesterday that he was happy that the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) board has finally approved the city’s BRT project.
However, he would still want the City Traffic Operations Management (Citom) and the city council to look at other pending proposals.
“I went to Singapore and it’s a competitive city. The great challenge for mobility is part of it,” he said.
Rama said he wanted Citom to conduct an inventory of the current state of a railway that serviced Cebu in the 1920s and asses the structures now built on it.
Cebu’s train system traversed the route from what is now Carcar City in the south to Bogo City in the north.
Rama said that the train route was well-thought out and added he does not discount the possibility of lobbying for the reestablishment of a train system here.
“Everywhere in the world, there is train. There must be a master plan (for Cebu’s railway system) in the archives. We will never know. What used to be useful before may still be useful now but with some variations,” he said.
Rama said also asked the city council to continue to hear other mass transport proposals pending before them.
But he said that a proposal by an Austrian firm to put up a cable car system in the city would only cater to tourism and not mass transportation.
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