Visions for a better Cebu City

Last Thursday I had the  opportunity to interview for ‘My Politics’ three persons who are actively trying to make Cebu a better place to live  — Marc Canton, Architect Michael Yumi Espina and Eng. Fortunato “Jun” Sanchez.

We took up several concerns that affect Cebuanos,  discussing first the rationale of the Cebu Green Loop plan that will experiment with road sharing today  in four major roads of Cebu City.  Half of the road lanes will be  allocated for people to walk, bike or host other activities for pedestrians.  The other half  will be for vehicles.

Statistics  showed that 95 percent of the  roads are used by vehicles while  the rest of the population only use a small portion of the  roads.
One goal of the Green Loop plan is to give  a bigger portion of the road for the use of people with no cars so they can  walk or bike to their destinations, or just enjoy walking for exercise.

I hope that eventually, the public will support this  endeavor to give the road back to the people.
Some  argue that the road sharing scheme won’t work in the Philippines with its  hot, tropical weather. On this,   Canton said  we can  plant more trees  to provide  more shade to protect us from the sun. Canton cited Singapore which has the same tropical climate as the Philippines  but has  more roads for  people to walk,  bike and do other things.

Another topic of discussion was the vision of a third Mactan bridge, which Architect Yumi Espina’s  students designed,  to connect Cordova and somewhere south of  Cebu City. Why south of the city?  It’s a logical choice, said Espina, to allow people from the south,  including those from Dumaguete City in Negros Oriental, to come to Cebu without having to  go  to central Cebu City  to reach the international airport.

And  the city would be  spared the additional number  of  vehicles from southern Cebu which are headed to  the airport.
Also, Architect Espina was excited about the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) which got President Aquino’s  green light. The forthcoming  mode of mass transit   would expand choices of Cebuanos who can also be introduced to electric vehicles and electric bicycles.

But  I can’t  understand why the proposed BRT route will  traverse  Osmeña Boulevard where there are not many commuters.

I prefer the proposed route  of the Movement for a Livable Cebu which will  start from Pardo in  Cebu City, passing  Natalio Bacalso Avenue then straight to the new Imus Road then on to Mandaue City.

This would  serve more people and ease traffic there. This  proposal is more logical and not political.

The  flooding in the  cities of Cebu and Mandaue was next in the discussion. Engineer Sanchez compared the rains in Ormoc City, where flooding  killed over 5,000 people after  400 millimeters of rainfall.

He compared it with Metro Manila’s ordeal when Ondoy struck with a rainfall of about 200 millimeters.  After the downpour in Metro Cebu last Sept. 18,  we experienced flooding after only about 60 millimeters of rain.

So why was flooding in the cities so severe?  Sanchez explained that  rain water from the mountains have nowhere to go, so roads near SM Cebu in the North Reclamation Area get flooded every time there’s  heavy rain. What’s   ironic is that SM sits near the Mahiga Creek beside the sea, but still gets flooded.

What are the solutions to  the flooding in the city?

Sanchez listed a number of options like  clearing creeks and rivers of obstructions,  dredging from the mouth of the river going upstream,  installing  cisterns in households, clearing   three-meter easements on both sides of waterways.

Finally, the most important suggestion to end our miseries, Sanchez said, is to build  a dam in the mountains of Cebu City.
The dam would  hold the excess water  and keep it from rushing to the city.

Aside from containing the water, the dam’s reservoir of water can also be used to replenish the  aquifers and form part of our water supply.

Why not install bigger culverts to accommodate a bigger volume of flood water?

According to  Sanchez,  this remedy is not enough to prevent flooding.  He cited  the experience in A.S. Fortuna Street, fronting the Rolling Hills in Mandaue City.  The area still gets flooded during heavy rains,   even after the Mandaue city  government  installed bigger culverts.