Unraveling Metro Cebu's public transport

(Part 2)

Last Sunday, we took a first look at Metro Cebu's public transport, and why in the past years, it was most invariably configured into a spokes-out-of-a-hub system congregating either in Colon St. or Magallanes St., or Carbon Market. Pardo, Basak, Labangon, Guadalupe, Lahug, Banilad, Talamban, Mabolo, etc. - they all were connected to the old "downtown" area, as if everybody wanted to go to Colon/Magallanes and/or Carbon. Of course, they did, or rather, we did, since those areas were the center of economic and "urban" activities then.

The jeepney lines or routes were coded in numbers - 01, 02, and so on and so forth, and majority of the Cebuanos know where these route numbers are going to. It's easy to teach visitors to navigate the metropolis, too, even on jeepneys, since the route numbers are very definite, … at the start, … only the rich people and people who had cars have no inkling where 01K actually goes to or where it passes. The complexity and difficulty started when people started tinkering with the system and introduced "amendments" or "enhancements."

The problem is simply because people hate to walk, and in a country where it can be extremely hot at midday, or you can be in the middle of a torrential monsoon rain, that can be pretty understandable. So like anybody else, people want to get off public transport right at their doorstep. But public transport systems are not supposed to be doorstep-to-doorstep or it won't be public anymore. In one column we wrote last year, we differentiated between public transport systems, and paratransits which are common in many smaller cities in Asia. Mainstream public transport has definite routes/stops, and has scheduled frequencies.

Jeepneys are paratransits - unscheduled but have definite routes. More often than not, they stop anywhere, not at jeepney stops, especially when there are no traffic enforcers around. At route ends, usually residential areas, passengers disembark and walk to their homes, doing exactly the opposite the next morning when they go to work or school. Walkability constraints make this portion of the trip very stressful and uncomfortable, which we have also discussed in a previous article. That's why people want to get off at their doorstep.

Jeepney operators and drivers know this. We have also explained in a previous column about jeepney fares that operating jeepneys can be very profitable, even if there are an excess number of units on the road. Since government usually control route franchises, they devised a scheme of introducing "new" routes with only a fraction of an existing route changed. For example, you can let a route pass around another village or subdivision at its end so that it can be treated as a new route and thus allowing new franchises. Another route may pass through another subdivision or "purok." At the hub, you can choose to pass through Colon, Magallanes, or any combinations thereof. There are plenty of side streets at the "downtown" area and plenty of side streets everywhere. Over time, the routes quadrupled!

They're going to the same direction and maintain 90% of the original route, so their route numbers stay. But now you have, 01A, 01B, 01C …, 02A, 02B, and so on and on. Even Labangon has a 12J and 12L now! We have 01K going to North Bus terminal. I don't know now how many distinct routes we have, but if original route evolved into 5 different routes, that would be 5 times what we had in the 1980's. If each evolved to 10, even a true-blooded Cebuano who lived here all his/her life can memorize all. How much more for a visitor.

The problem is confounded by the fact that while the cities grew, population expanded, new urban development emerged, and the jeepney routes ballooned, everybody still think along the same transport corridors. In other words, most of the jeepney routes still utilize the same "highways" they pass through in the 1990's. This largely contributed to the congestion problem in many areas. But that's just a small portion of the problem. The bigger issue is even private transport, the cars, used these traditional corridors, too, and blame jeepneys for the mess. Traffic figures will show that private cars are the biggest contributors to traffic jams in the metropolis. But we are always blaming jeepneys. Or rerouting them.

As I may paraphrase the adage I've written last week, "The solutions of past may become the problems of the present." It is best to understand why things are and how they became, before we offer any suggestions, moving on forward. (to be continued)