While new Citom chief Victor Caindic is still in talks with Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama on assuming the post, the mayor is laying out his plans to deal with the city’s traffic.
(CDN Photo/Lito Tecson)
An additional 15 motorcycles worth P1.5 million will be acquired by the Cebu City Traffic Operations Management (Citom) to help personnel respond quickly to accidents and traffic problems.
Citom operations chief Joy Tumulak said the purchase will be taken from Citom’s budget this year.
“The mayor even wants Citom to have 100 motorcycles. When he inspected traffic last Tuesday night, he saw Citom personnel in four-wheel vehicles that sometimes get caught in traffic and can’t respond immediately,” he said.
He said the motorcycles will arrive before Sinulog next month and will augment Citom’s 23 motorcycles.
Tumulak said they already have a team to assist traffic enforcers assigned in several areas.
Pullout
Earlier this week, the mayor announced that he will temporarily take over Citom after he reassigned former Citom executive director Rafael Yap to head the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project.
Rama said he will address the worsening traffic problem in the city as if it’s a crisis situation.
Tumulak said he was tasked by Rama to pull out the city’s pay parking bays which cause traffic in areas like Carbon.
He said Citom personnel are doing an inventory of the pay parking bays.
Timing
Starting yesterday, Citom also implemented orange flashing traffic lights in most of the busy intersections in the city.
Tumulak said this means traffic enforcers will be handling the intersections instead of depending on traffic lights.
“With the bigger volume of cars on the streets, the timing and program of our traffic lights can’t properly regulate traffic anymore,”
Tumulak told reporters.
Of the more than 30 signalized intersections in the city, traffic will be conducted by traffic enforcers in 23 areas.
It will be done during peak hours from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
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