Mandaue City may follow Cebu’s counterflow measure

The Mandaue City Government will explore the possibility of regulating the counterflowing of vehicles, says Mandaue City Mayor Luigi Quisumbing.

His statement came after the Cebu City Government decided to impound for 30 days vehicles caught counterflowing.

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña is set to sign an executive order that will put the policy in place, after observing that vehicles that counterflow causes road crashes in the city.

"On the part of the City of Mandaue,wewilltakealittletime to observe the campaign, on how they conduct it. We will explore the possibility of implementing a similar regulation here in the city as well," Quisumbing told reporters.

Traffic is usually heavy in the major streets of Mandaue City since it is the gateway for motorists from Mactan Island and the northern parts of Cebu.

While observing Cebu City Government's upcoming new traffic rule, Quisumbing noted that the Traffic EnforcementAgency of Mandaue (TEAM) have issued citation tickets to numerous traffic violators including those who counterflow.

"Atong revenue sa TEAM has been very, very high. Kaabot ta og almost 700-800 violations a day. Para nako, saludo gyud ko ni Mayor Tommy nga he's able to implement that new regulation sa traffic in the City of Cebu," he said.

Of the reports of road mishaps in the city due to counterflowing, Quisumbing said that motorists take their time to monitor if the road they are taking on has no traffic enforcers on standby.

"Unfortunately we found nga kung dunay mga enforcers walay mo-counterflow. Kung dili sila makakita sad ug enforcer, daghan sad kaayo mo-counterflow," he said.

The city government has been doing their efforts to ease up the long queue of vehicles and to decongest traffic.

"We have been deploying traffic enforcers in the key chokepoints of the city we have been cracking down on counterflow but unfortunately, we cannot put traffic enforcers every 20 feet," he said.

The mayor hopes that they will stop counterflowing so that they will avoid traffic incidents.

"Maghinaut lang ko na kining mga kusog bitaw mocounterflow, they will stop doing that before they reap the consequences. Hopefully, kung dunay mahitabo nila, they don't take other victim's with that," he said.

Governor Hilario Davide III, for his part, is planning to meet all the “traffic managers” from the local government units especially in Metro Cebu to discuss solutions to the traffic problems in the island.

Davide said, there must be a uniform traffic system in all the LGUs for smooth flow of traffic.

“So that we can come up with a really unified system to ensure smooth flow of traffic ug kana pag-address sa accidents sa atong mga roads” Davide said.

Also invited in the meeting are the bus operators, truckers, personnel from the Highway Patrol Group (HPG) , Land Transportation Office (LTO) and Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB).

The governor said he will listen to the inputs of those who are in the field and knows the real traffic situation in Cebu, especially that the sizes of the roads in some towns and cities are different.

“Naay mga roads nato nga lapad kaayo, naay gamay. Like sa south pananglitan, part diha sa first district lagpad na ‘nya going to second district gamay na lang sa north mao pud” he said.

The Governor also sees the need for the traffic enforcers to be trained on traffic management, adding that the Mega Cebu has planned to create the Metro Cebu Traffic Enforcers Academy.

“Kay kadaghanan sa mga enforcers nato, wala mag skwela og traffic management siguro. Most of them mga tanod lang, kaning volunteers, so kinahanglan gyud sila og proper training” Davide said.

The creation of the academy has been postponed by the Metro Cebu Development and Coordinating Board pending the review of the agreement.