Public transportation in Metro Cebu (Part 4) – Who plans?

A corollary question to what kind of public transportation a city will have is, the institutional one: Who does the planning? And well, the execution of the plans as well. If we look at the city the current administration is aspiring to be like, it would be the Land Transportation Authority (LTA) in Singapore. In its website, it says – Our work: “We are driven by the vision of a people-centric land transport network that connects communities and places. We look across the board to manage traffic flow, provide reliable public transport and support active mobility options for a car-lite city. Apart from charting the future of land transport through master plans, we continually look at ways, including using technology, to enhance the reliability of the public transport system, support options for walking and cycling while improving road connectivity and service levels of point-to-point travel options.”

Who plans public transportation in Cebu City? This may not be an easy question to answer considering the existence of a national-local government delineation in the Philippines which does not exist in a city-state like Singapore. Still, it doesn’t seem to bother Cebu City in the past. CITOM then took up the challenge filling in the vacuum of the existing franchise-based regulatory system of LTFRB. While the latter do have a mechanism to measure route capacity and rule on how many buses or jeepneys should be allowed on that route, the ability on how and where the routes are planned clearly resides (or should) in the local government itself, especially considering future land uses. To a certain extent, this has been addressed through the Local Public Transport Route Plan. But all over the country, this is still sadly lacking.

CITOM filled up the void before through the “Travel Line” system --it was CITOM that determined the routes which it then submits to LTFRB for “opening” or “increasing” routes and their capacity. Cebu City went a notch further and initiated the Cebu Bus Rapid System (BRT) project in 2008, even without the concurrence of DOTC. It was so successful that DOTC took note of it and pushed the project in 2011 and started to make plans for BRTs in Metro Manila as well.

Public transportation IS a local issue, and its planning and regulation should be done at the local level wherever it is. This is specifically the reason why a separate division was created under the Cebu City Transportation Office (CCTO) when it was created in 2009 – the Mass Transport Division, in addition to the other four --Administration, Operation, Planning, and Engineering. CCTO and its Mass Transport Division should be on top of the Cebu BRT to prevent the ridiculous situation where its first route --from Capitol to Cebu South Bus Terminal, will cater only to a handful of passengers which may be counted with one’s fingers. Why they choose this initial origin-destination line would be a subject of future scrutiny. The bigger question is: Why did CCTO and the Cebu City government and its top officials and legislators agree to it? Do they expect throngs of passengers between CSBT and the Capitol? (To be continued)