Cebu City updates tricycle route plan

The Cebu City’s Tricycle Route Plan (TRP) has been updated and put in place for an all-out implementation and sustained enforcement.

This, after the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) has ordered local government units (LGU) to review all existing tricycle and pedicab routes within their area of jurisdiction, and to draft or update the TRP in compliance of

Memorandum Circular 2020-036 issued on February 17, 2020.

Lawyer Rey Gealon, executive director of the Cebu City Transportation Office (CCTO), said the TRP is in compliance with existing laws and regulations, particularly DILG’s Memorandum and City Ordinance 2357.

“The said ordinance provides for a comprehensive regulation for the registration and operation of motorized tricycles in which the TRP has been previously laid out,” said Gealon.

Under the DILG memorandum, no tricycle or pedicab should operate on national highways, whether utilized by fourwheel vehicles greater than four tons and where normal speed exceed 40 kph.

“As CCTO’s Executive Director, I ordered a relentless, no-nonsense campaign against erring drivers of tricycles and pedicabs,” said Gealon.

He added that there are four new routes that were added to the existing routes, which now makes it a total of 22 routes to be used by the 494 franchised tricycle units.

These new routes will serve Sitio Manga to Sitio Nazareth and vice versa; F. Lamas, Pleasant Homes, Don Bosco; Felina Village to Gaisano Tisa; and the Villa Leyson Subdivision.

These additional routes are some amendments made to the city’s TRP, which is in compliance with the DILG’s order to draft or update the TRP’s within 30 days.

The DILG ordered the LGUs to create a tricycle task force which is separate and distinct from its Tricycle Regulatory Board or Unit which is tasked to carry out the order on the TRP.

Under the memorandum, the TRP should also detail an installation of visible and appropriate signages, marks for lanes and other safety features to guide and protect all vehicles utilizing the highways.

And conduct information dissemination plans to raise awareness among residents and other motorist on the new tricycle routes and the portion of national highways to be traversed by the tricycles for lack of alternative routes, as stated in the memorandum.

All TRPs are only valid for two years from the issuance of the memorandum. —