Ayala Land hit for removing bike lanes

AN avid cyclist and green transport advocate on Friday added his voice to protests against a plan to convert bicycle lanes along Ayala Avenue in Makati City into shared or “sharrow” lanes.

“I think this is contrary to everything the government has been doing with regards to promoting active transport,” Richard Anthony Siy of the Move As One coalition told The Manila Times on Friday.

Siy in particular criticized property developer Ayala Land for agreeing to the move initiated by the city government of Makati, and heaped praises on the Department of Transportation for its strong commitment to put up facilities for cyclists and e-bike riders.

“When they (Ayala Land) originally communicated that they were removing the protection of the bike lanes for the sake of public transport commuters, [they] said something about how we can increase public transport vehicles,” Siy said.

He said the conversion of bike lanes to “sharrows” does not help cyclists as well as commuters.

“This is a point we wanted to dispute, because when they talked about converting the protected bike lanes to sharrows, originally, in practice, what they were going to do is that they were going to make it the same as any other travel lane. It was going to be an ordinary car lane,” Siy added. “By converting it to a general car lane, they weren’t actually helping public transport commuters very much at all because the public transport vehicles using that lane would also be subject to motor vehicle congestion because of the cars that would use it as well.” Following opposition from cyclists, commuters, and other advocates, Makati City Hall has deferred the conversion of bicycle lanes on Ayala Avenue from February 15 to March 6.

The announcement came from Make It Makati announced on Tuesday, February 14.