Heavy traffic resumed in Metro Cebu streets yesterday, the first working day of 2015 as students and workers resumed their daily commutes.
The congestion is expected to continue until the Sinulog grand parade on January 18.
An earlier announced plan to have conditional one-way traffic on the flyover on A.S. Fortuna Street near Ma. Luisa Estates in north Cebu City was set aside.
Lanes along the Bantal corridor leading to the flyover were adjusted instead.
Three of its four lanes were used for vehicles coming from Talamban and Mandaue city going to Cebu City.
The last lane was reserved for vehicles traveling the opposite direction.
The Cebu City Traffic Operations Management (Citom) said they received some complaints from motorists heading to Talamban who said they didn’t know of the lane-reduction plan ahead of time.
The one-way scheme was discussed in a radio interview Sunday.
However, Mayor Michael Rama called off implementation of the experiment based on feedback that it would worsen traffic.
As of 6 p.m. yesterday, Tumulak said traffic was manageable in Bantal. They didn’t alter the lane assignments.
New Citom executive director Victor Caindec, who did an on-site inspection, said they will continue the new three-one lane setup in Bantal this morning.
Traffic cones are ready for installation on the road once traffic gets very heavy.
Overall, Cebu city traffic was better than expected, according to a Citom official.
“We expected moderate to heavy traffic but it’s considered manageable,” said Joy Tumulak, Citom operations chief.
He said Citom didn’t need to disable the traffic signal lights to shift to manual traffic enforcement in busy intersections.
Adding to the volume was the return of people to the city after spending the Christmas holiday in their hometowns.
Along the Banilad-Talamban corridor, traffic was heavy between 8 a.m. to 9 a.m.
It was moderate from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. then heavier towards 9 a.m. before returning back to moderate flow at 9 a.m. -10 a.m., said Tumulak.