The BRT challenge

LATELY, I have been caught up in online debates on social media with respect to the proposed Bus Rapid Transport system (BRT). As I have said previously, this system will not work in the planned route. It will ultimately make Cebu a living hell. The proponents of the BRT have a beautiful presentation that makes it appear as if it is the solution to our mass transit and traffic problems. The problem with the presentation is that it is not up to scale. If you watch it carefully there is no way Osmeña Blvd. can be made that wide wherein it can accept the BRT lane plus an additional lane for cars from each direction with a huge sidewalk.

Some people are saying at least it is a start, better than doing nothing. No! Doing nothing would actually be better that spending P1.3 billion on something that will not work.

Remember some months ago an environmentalist group succeeded in convincing the city to try its road sharing project by closing half of Osmeña Blvd. and dedicating that half exclusively to bicycles and pedestrians. This experiment was done on a Sunday at a time where there were the least number of cars on the road. The result was gridlock. The experiment was a complete failure. Half of Osmeña Blvd. is what will be left if the BRT pushes through. Even if the jeepneys are eliminated, we still have the private vehicles, delivery vans, taxis, tour buses, etc.

I am challenging the City and its officials to conduct a simple inexpensive experiment before they jump into this BRT project. For a few hours from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on a weekday, remove all the jeepneys that are on the proposed BRT route and block off the lanes that will be used by the BRT, then assess the traffic. This experiment will completely show whether or not the BRT is viable in Cebu. I bet traffic will be at its worse and that traffic is what Cebu will have to deal with if the BRT project will push through.

Cebu contributes a significant amount of money to our national economy, thus, Cebu deserves a better mass transit project than the BRT. For me the BRT is a conseulo de bobo project from the national