Evening truck ban in Mandaue extended by one hour

THE evening truck ban in Mandaue City will be extended by an hour after the City Council amended an ordinance for this purpose.

Trucks are now banned from the city from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., or an hour later than the original 7 p.m. schedule.

Trucks and delivery vans carrying perishable goods and petroleum products are exempted from the ban.

Councilor Elstone Dabon, who chairs the council’s transportation committee, said he moved for the amendment.

The ordinance also imposes a morning truck ban from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m.

Florentino Nimor, executive director of the Traffic Enforcement Agency of Mandaue (TEAM), said vehicular flow doesn’t lessen by 7 p.m., the time stated in the original ordinance

“We observed that by 7 p.m., the volume of vehicles hasn’t yet subsided. Now you add the trucks and the traffic worsens that’s why we synchronized our truck ban with Cebu City’s at 8 p.m,” Nimor said.

Nimor cited one incident on A.C. Cortes street, where several trucks could be seen lining up to the bridge at past 9 p.m.

About 25 percent of the 330,000 public or private vehicles passing through the city are trucks, he said. He said a one-hour extension of the evening truck ban doesn’t mean it reduces the volume of vehicles passing through the city.

“The additional hour at least doesn’t increase the volume of vehicles. It usually goes down at 8 p.m.,” Nimor said.

Nimor said they consulted the truckers’ associations and the business community and both supported the amendment to the truck ban.

The amendment to the truck ban ordinance was approved last December and has been published in local dailies.

“Wala pa mi nanakop. Ang among gihimo mamara mi og truck unya pahibaw-on namo sila sa amendment (We haven’t started apprehending. We are conducting an information campaign to inform the drivers about the amendment),” Nimor said.

Nimor said they will implement the ordinance next week.

Violators will be fined P1,000.