Sudden road closures tie up Saturday traffic

WEEKEND EXPERIMENT. Motorists and commuters users were caught by surprise when steel railings blocked parts of S. Osmeña Road and Kaoshiung Street on a Saturday afternoon. Citom said it was an experiment.
(CDN Photo/Lito Tecson)

Motorists erupted in complaints yesterday afternoon when portions of  S. Osmeña Road and surrounding areas of SM City were suddenly closed to vehicle access.

No prior announcement was made to the public.

The decision to reroute and implement road closures was reached in the morning by the Cebu City Traffic Operations (Citom) board with Mayor Michael Rama and implemented at 3 p.m.

The changes took place on a payday weekend, when traffic to and from malls in SM City and Ayala Center are especially heavy.

The road closures started  at 3 p.m. from the corner of F. Cabahug Street to the corner of Radisson Blu Hotel along Pope John Paul II Ave. at 3 p.m.

Railings were also set up  to block access to Kaohsiung Street and prevent vehicles from making a right turn to S. Osmeña Road.

Drivers were caught by surprise and were forced to make U-turns, which complicated traffic flow in nearby streets.

By early evening, as the clamor of motorists rose, adjustments were made to ease up and provide more access to S. Osmeña Road.

Rafael Yap, who has reassumed the position of Citom executive director today, admitted they weren’t able to widely disseminate information about the changes which were agreed on just yesterday morning.

“There were no notices because there was not enough time,” he said.

Mayor  Rama called Citom board members to a snap meeting at his  residence at 9 a.m. yesterday.

He cited the need to implement a traffic experiment along S. Osmeña Road. Notices for the meeting were sent a day before.

“This  is a traffic experiment aimed at reducing accidents along the damaged portion of the road,” Yap said.

He said they also want to prepare for road work on Osmena Road, where the asphalt overlay will be peeled off and replace with concrete, a rehabilitation project by the Dept. of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) through its contractor  WT Construction.

Yap said the public should be ready for more traffic experiments in the coming days especially after Mayor Rama declared in December when pre-holiday traffic was building up that the city’s traffic was in a state of  “disaster.”

Assessment
Rama is meeting the Citom board again this morning to assess how Saturday’s experiment went.

“Grabe ang traffic. Many were caught unaware,” said Christine, a finance executive who tried to drive to her office in the North Reclamation Area.

“Whose brilliant idea was it to implement without informing the public?” she asked.

A representative of a big commercial establishment called the Cebu Daily News office asking about the road closures, alarmed that customers would be affected.  He said nobody was picking up their calls at Citom.

A Citom enforcer told CDN they were given instructions at noon then fielded to set up steel barriers on the target  roads like Kaohsiung Street.

More barriers were placed at the corner of Pope John Paul II Ave. near Radisson Blu Hotel at the corner of F. Cabahug and S. Osmeña road near the old Citom impounding area.

Diverted
The Citom enforcer, who did not want to be named, said road closure would have included F. Cabahug Street.

But enforcers, who anticipated chokepoints, argued that closing F. Cabahug which provides access to the Mahiga Bridge and Ouano Avenue in Mandaue City would further congest traffic in Cebu City.

Vehicles  from Mandaue City  bound for Cebu City were then diverted to Baclig Road inside the Cebu Port Authority compound.

Vehicles then passed Baclig’s exit road located after the Qimonda IT Center, and made a right turn to merge with  vehicle traffic on the city-side  lane (facing Cebu’s mountains) of S. Osmeña Road near the Sugbutel building.

At 7 p.m., Citom opened the closed portion of S. Osmeña Road to one-way traffic for vehicles headed for Mandaue City.

Adjustments
Vehicles on the city-side lane of S. Osmeña Road  were later made to switch to the  seaside lane upon reaching the corner of Kaohsiung Street.

“We .adjusted to partial closure in response to  the clamor of  motorists on traffic impact being felt from SM to Ayala area,” he said.

Congestion was very heavy in roads surrounding  SM City.

Congestion also affected arterial roads  leading  to the Cebu Business Park. Traffic congestion peaked from 5 p.m. to about 7:30 p.m.

“There are issues on adjustments and coordination that we need to address and which we learned during the experiment,” Yap said in a phone interview.

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