Task force eyes new route plan to get tricycles off national roads

The Mandaue City government will develop a new route plan to remove tricycles from national roads. | Screengrab from the Mandaue City PIO

CEBU, Philippines — A tricycle task force has been formed in Mandaue City to develop a new route that will get tricycles off the national roads.

In his Executive Order No. 60, Mayor Jonas Cortes created the Mandaue City Tricycle Task Force with him as the chairman and Police Colonel Jonathan Abella, Mandaue City police chief, as the vice chairman.

The MCTTF is tasked to “conduct meetings, public consultations and hearings with stakeholders, and survey and/or hold ocular inspection of the zone or area of tricycle operations.”

New routes for tricycles

John Eddu Ibañez, executive secretary to Mayor Cortes, said the task force would look into new routes that the tricycles could ply so they would no longer need to traverse the national roads.

The city made the move following the directive of the Department of Interior and Local Government’s (DILG) memorandum issued last February 17, 2020, which would give local government units (LGUs) 30 days to rationalize all tricycle routes to enforce its ban from national roads, identify the national roads within their jurisdiction, and determine the present and proposed routes in the drafting of a tricycle route plan (TRP).

At present, some of the tricycle routes in Mandaue City traverse national roads including those plying Barangays Cambaro, Looc, Opao, Umapad, Ibabao, Alang-alang and Paknaan to and from the public market in Barangay Centro.

“Kini dili ni ingon ani kasayon kay inig wagtang sa tricycle dili nato wagtangon ang fact nga kining tricycle, panginabuhian ni sa uban nga Mandauehanon,”Ibañez said in a news release in the city’s Public Information Office (PIO).

(This is not an easy thing to do — because once the tricycles are gone from the national roads, we should always put in mind that driving tricycles are the livelihood of some of the Mandauehanons.)

Local Public Transport Route Plan

Ibañez said the new tricycle route plan that the task force would come up following the public consultations would be integrated in the city’s Local Public Transport Route Plan (LPTRP) which had been awaiting approval from the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB).

Tricycles who might lose their livelihood based on the new route plan, Ibañez said, would be absorbed by the city once they realized the plan to operate e-jeepneys to ply in the city’s roads./dbs