Citom: No complaints so far on new parking layout scheme

Fuente’s new parking layout. (CDN PHOTO/ JUNJIE MENDOZA)

There were no complaints with the new parking layout enforced by the Cebu City Traffic Operations Management (Citom) at Fuente Osmeña Circle starting yesterday.

“It’s okay. Traffic has been very manageable. We haven’t received any complaints. We’ll continue to observe in the coming days,” Citom operations chief Joy Tumulak said.

Under the new parking layout near the Rajah Park Hotel, a 3.5-meter wide lane from the sidewalk is made vacant for taxis and other vehicles that will drop off passengers beside the sidewalk.

After the space, diagonal parking perpendicular to the sidewalk is available for other motorists.

Parked vehicles can only move forward to the space before the sidewalk to get out.

Experimental
The old parallel parking which can only accommodate 14 parking slots was increased to 31 slots with the new layout without taking too much space, Tumulak said.

He said Citom will soon be painting the roads to delineate the intended parking slots.

The parking layout was implemented as early as 7 am yesterday and Tumulak said traffic was okay even during peak hours in the morning and in the late afternoon.

Since the new scheme is still experimental, Tumulak said they will observe its effects for at least a week since there are varying degrees of traffic each day.

Coincidental
If it’s effective, Tumulak said Citom will continue the new layout and will even implement the same at the other side of Fuente Osmeña near Shamrock.

Traffic was heavy in some major streets in the city last Tuesday afternoon and evening.

Tumulak said they had to implement the flashing lights in some intersections since there were several minor road accidents in several streets.

“It was just coincidental. There was heavy traffic since there were some minor accidents. There were no injuries though,” he said.

These areas include S. Osmeña, V. Sotto, T. Padilla Extension, MJ Cuenco and near Plaza Independencia.

He said before they implement the flashing lights, they make sure that a traffic enforcer is ready to manually direct the traffic flow in the intersections.