New Year joyride

Iwent around the uptown area on New Year’s Day. It was a perfect time to admire the beauty of Cebu City’s streets. There were hardly any cars on the road, which meant there was no traffic. And it transported me back in time, when getting from Banilad to Urgello took less than 10 minutes.

I’ve always taken a liking for Gorordo Ave. so I was quite pleased with myself that the trip from J.Y. Square to Gen. Maxilom Ave., or Mango Ave., didn’t disappoint. Maybe it was the clear blue sky and the cool breeze, or the realization that despite the many changes in the area, many things remained the same.

Many of the trees that line both sides of the street are long gone, but the giant acacias outside the UP Cebu are still there to provide shade during a hot day.

The City has started installing buntings on Mango Ave., which only means that the Sinulog festival is around the corner.

Back in the late ‘70s when I was in elementary, first at Boys’ High then at Inmaculada, it was the only street in the city that would get congested. And it stayed that way up until the early ‘90s. So, to find the street almost empty again brought me back to the days when our father would pick me up and my siblings at school so we could have lunch at my grandmother’s in Urgello.

Can you imagine? We had around an hour to get from the school to Sambag 1, have lunch, get into a quick fight with my sister, get our daily allowance from lola, then head back to school, with time to spare to play tag with classmates.

Nowadays, traveling from Fuente Osmeña to the corner of the Dole building takes almost 45 minutes during rush hour.

I swear, I feel bad for all those people stuck inside vehicles, especially the commuters in public utility jeepneys. What I don’t understand is some of them are not even traveling that far. Some hop on the jeep on Ramos St. only to get down across the Iglesia.

Seriously, people. That’s a 25-minute walk, tops, if you adopt a snail’s pace. Of course, it might be too hot outside, but that’s what the umbrella is for.

Anyway, I think there’ll be more people using the sidewalks in the next few months.

Didn’t you hear? The second tranche of the oil excise tax under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Act took effect on Jan. 1.

We’re talking about an additional P4.50 per liter for diesel and P9 for gasoline, excluding the P2.24 per liter increase for both products.

So expect public utility drivers and operators to demand an increase in fare and private drivers to think twice about using their cars to run errands.