Two urgent micro plans
If I write about two specific proposals which are in the context of micro planning, it is because firstly, I have not had the privilege of reading a comprehensive Cebu City traffic planning of which these two suggestions should be a part of. And secondly, there is to me an urgent necessity to do these projects.
What are these suggestions? I propose that his Honor Cebu City Michael Rama and the honorable members of the Sangguniang Panlungsod from the vice mayor to the councilors should take a look at a road located in Barangay Mabolo which is called the Holy Name Street. I am not aware of any ordinance naming this street as such but because it has come to be known as Holy Name Street, let it be so. This road is very narrow and at certain points physically crooked. It is excruciating to travel through this road because it can hardly accommodate two vehicles coming from opposite directions. At any given time in the morning, when you drive on this road, you will never miss to see people taking their bath on the roadside while children are cavorting and playing on it.
It seems that the residents of this street believe that Holy Name is the name of an open air bathroom. And why so? Most of the shanties built by the roadside have their posts actually erected on some portions of the road and their awnings are such that vertically tall vehicles have to be carefully driven otherwise they hit such awnings.
As I describe above Holy Name Street, the two obvious things that need to be done are to demolish the illegal structures and widen the roads. In order that the social justice provision of the Constitution may be approximated, the city should resettle those families that need to be placed somewhere.
The resettlement must be selective. Not all actual informal settlers on Holy Name Street deserve the compassion of the city. Some of them have their houses somewhere which they have leased to someone else. In other words, they are not really poor. They are in fact opportunists of some kind. Others, too, came from some areas where their previous homes were demolished. Of course, the dismantling of their houses was only effected after they received disturbance fees. In both instances, they have come to Holy Name Street and stayed there for some time without paying the owners of private lots where their informal homes are partly erected.
If this road is widened and freed of the informal settlers, it can serve as an alternate avenue to San Jose dela Montana now known as Pope John XXIII Avenue. If part of the humongous traffic that uses Pope John XXIII Avenue can drive through Holy Name Street, the volume of vehicles can be significantly divided to effect a freer flow of traffic.
Still the project should not end there. The city government needs to open and construct a road extending the Holy Name Street from M. J. Cuenco Avenue towards the reclamation area. If the plan is to smoothen the traffic, such an extension going through and coming from the reclamation area where a huge mall is built can be effectively eased.
The other suggestion I have is on Cabantan Street. The present condition of this road is not dissimilar to that of Holy Name Street. Years ago it was wider but the construction of residential homes on the street sides has effectively reduced the width of this road. The city administration can very well pour funds also to widen the street from its entry point in Barangay Mabolo towards its end at Archbishop Reyes Avenue. If converted into a two-lane road, it can absorb the traffic of the car owners heading towards another mall nearby.
Like the Holy Name Street, the northeastern part of Cabantan has to be lengthened so as to reach also the highways traversing the reclamation area. Similarly there is the need of the city to extend this Cabantan Street from Archbishop Reyes Avenue to Gorordo Avenue.
Few articles ago, I wrote about redefining S. Cabahug Street from Mabolo towards A.S. Fortuna. The two suggestions in this article complement the effect of such write-up. From my ordinary mind's concept these three roads will drastically reduce the traffic problem we are now experiencing in the Ban-Tal corridor. How about it mayor, councilors?
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