Bridge repairs and chaos
Atty. Jerome G. Neri
The Scrutineer
FEB. 8 was a holiday and I was in Davao enjoying a fun drive from Davao City to Governor Generoso in Davao Oriental. So I left Cebu at 7:30 am, arrived in Davao at 8:30 and then met up with the Davao Sports Car Club for breakfast and by 9:45 we were off to our 163 kilometer Drive. We reached our destination at 12 noon. Had lunch, relaxed for a bit then at 2:30 drove back to Davao City to be able to catch my 5:30 Flight. I arrived in the airport at 4:30, just in time to catch my flight back to Cebu.
During this long drive, I felt bad for Cebu. All their roads are a lot better than Cebu. I even commented to my host there that it did not feel like I was in the Philippines. It was a completely hassle free roadtrip. Unlike my previous roadtrip, which was from Cebu to Bacolod where much of the hassle was in Cebu and there was none in Negros.
Not too long ago, about five years back I was so proud of how nice it is to to a roadtrip here in Cebu. I invited friends from Manila and had some roadtrips from east to west and from north to south of Cebu. That time Cebu was a good roadtrip destination. Today, if you go North you are practically on first gear all the way to Liloan in stop and go traffic in what is supposed to be a National Highway. It is the same story driving south. This is what we get for having no governor. Actually, we have a governor but he prefers to be a symbolic head so he does not do anything to improve the Province.
It is very ironic that in the last three years, the roads in Negros Oriental have become wider, double the width. While in the province of Cebu roads have just gotten more and more congested and nothing is being done about it.
Anyways, when I arrived in Cebu at around 6:30 p.m. from Davao, I was all excited to go home and have a good dinner with my 15 year old daughter. Then I could not leave the airport. The road out to the airport was at a complete standstill despite February 8 being a non-working holiday. We were crawling at slower than walking pace all the way to the Marcelo Fernan Bridge and to Mandaue City. Traffic was so bad as repairs for the Mactan bridge have begun and is partially closed to traffic. They are saying that these repairs will take six months, but the government’s track record says it will take two years. It took government two years to repair A.S. Fortuna St., which is only a three-kilometer stretch of road.
What is worse is there is absolutely no organization from the Lapu-Lapu Government to at least ease the problem. There are enforcers that guide you up to the foot of the bridge, but once at the foot of the bridge, which is four lanes then funnels down to two lanes, it becomes a very Mar Roxas “bahala na kayo sa buhay nyo” thing.
In this chaos, you see cars, trucks, vans all jockeying for position, while at the same time, motorcycles zigzaging around the vehicles. I foresee accidents happening on a daily basis with that kind of chaos going on, which of course will add to the inconvenience and traffic. And of course, when there is slow moving traffic, there is always an unreliable car that breaks down.
With the sheer volume of cars that will have to traverse the Marcelo Fernan bridge, it is incumbent upon the local governments of Lapu-Lapu City and Mandue City to station at least 20 personnel on top of the bridge whose job will be to push stalled cars as waiting for a wrecker to tow will just take too much time for it to get to the bridge and, anyways, traffic there is at walking pace.
An accident investigator armed with a camera should also be permanently stationed and investigation should be based on the pictures. Having to draw a sketch and letting the parties argue in the accident site will just aggravate the traffic.
