If things flow smoothly as planned by the Cebu City government, buses will replace jeepneys in the city’s major roads by 2013.
A total of 190 buses will move more than 300,000 passengers daily once the bus rapid transport (BRT) system is fully functional, according to Nigel Villarete, city planning and development officer. Around 400 bus drivers will be employed, he said.
The BRT system is expected to address traffic problems as the city grows to become the premier choice for investments in business process outsourcing and tourism.
It will create a full mass transport system that is efficient, affordable, comfortable, safe and fast, said Villarete, who is also BRT project development officer.
It will integrate the economy by an urban mass transport system which also integrate social needs and addresses environmental concerns especially climate change, he added.
At first, the buses will run from Barangay Bulacao in the south to Barangay Talamban in the north, passing through the Cebu Business Park, where Ayala Center Cebu is located.
A pre-feasibility study conducted by a World Bank consultant, Integrated Transport Planning of England, showed the viability of the BRT system for Cebu.
Villarete said the government would put up the BRT structure, but the private sector would manage the bus service operations.
The mass transport system is part of a 50-kilometer BRT in Metro Manila and Cebu, with a proposed budget of $350 million. Villarete said the funding had been assured even before the pre-feasibility study was conducted.
Part of the amount will come from the Clean Technology Fund (CTF), which is administered by a trust-fund steering committee and jointly handled by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and other multilateral development banks.
Villarete said $250 million of the total project cost would come from a World Bank loan, $50 million from the CTF, and another $50 million as counterpart funding from the government.
Former Mayor Tomas Osmeña (now Cebu congressman) came up with the BRT concept in the 1990s, patterned after a model of a convenient public transportation system in Curitiba in Brazil. Formal talks, however, with World Bank and other agencies started only in 2008.
In mid-2009, Osmeña visited Bogota in Columbia, upon the invitation of its former Mayor Enrique Peñalosa. Bogota’s BRT took off from the Curitiba system, which was implemented in the early 80s.
Approval
Business groups in Cebu welcomed the BRT project, saying that they have long waited for it.
More importantly, the city needs world-class traffic and urban planning system, and the political will and vision to implement it. This has been sorely lacking. “Without these, our traffic situation will continue to degrade and urban sprawl will worsen,” said Gordon Alan ‘Dondi’ Joseph, president of Cebu Business Club.
Sam Chioson, president of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said buses would greatly help our traffic situation since these will replace jeepneys.
A group of small and medium entrepreneurs consider the BRT a way of checking migration from the rural to urban areas.
“Neighboring towns and cities can get easily to Cebu because it is easy and convenient to go home. They do not have to transfer residence,” said Rey Calooy, president of Filipino Cebuano Business Club Inc.
Calooy said the BRT would also spur businesses in the small towns since companies will have a faster road network in delivering products and services.
Partnership
The BRT will cost some $7 million per kilometre cheaper than the Light Rail Transit (LRT) and the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) in Metro Manila, which cost between $32 million and $60 million per kilometer, Villarete said.
He said the city government was hopeful that the Aquino administration would include the Cebu BRT project in its list of priority projects.
“The Cebu BRT is one of the better examples of private-public partnership implementation and also includes ODA [official development assistance] funding, which will ensure the barest Philippine government exposure,” said Villarete.
While the BRT infrastructure will be built by the government through the CTF, he said, service operations will be fully run by private sector. He said the private sector would invest in vehicles, as well as software and hardware systems for fare collection and management, and trip scheduling.
“It will maximize the efficiency of private sector in managing facilities. We are all going full force on all of this,” said Villarete.
He said the Department of Finance, Department of Transportation and Communications, and the National Economic and Development Authority had already sent letters of endorsement to the World Bank to proceed on the formal feasibility study, including a detailed planning and design of the BRT infrastructure, institutional arrangement and proposed loan arrangement.
Mandaue, Lapu-Lapu, Talisay and other neighboring cities may also be covered by the BRT, Villarete said. So far, only Mandaue has submitted a resolution asking the World Bank to make it part of the system.
Villarete pointed at future extensions between South Road Properties and SM, which can be connected through Ayala. Mandaue, on the other hand, can be reached through Barangay Talamban.
Issues
Leaders of the transport sector said they were not against the implementation of the BRT, provided that arrangements would be accorded the displaced drivers.
Ryan Benjamin Yu, chair of the Cebu Integrated Transport Services Cooperative (Citrasco), said his group had asked the city government to assist the drivers in getting new routes or alternative livelihood.
“The BRT cannot serve all the routes, especially the secondary routes. We have two requests. One, for those drivers who decide to operate their transport business, request the city government to facilitate their transfer to other routes,” Yu said.
The transfer, he said, should be free-of-charge to the drivers through a special agreement between the city government and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board.
Drivers who will choose to stop plying the routes will ask the city government for livelihood and entrepreneurial training and seminar. They should also be allowed to borrow capital for their new businesses.
“I already raised these concerns in an informal talk with [former mayor] Tomas Osmeña because it is not possible that you implement a new system and just don’t care about those who will be affected like they never existed,” Yu said.
Nilo Bastion, 45, a jeepney driver who plies the Talamban route, said the implementation of the BRT system would mean the loss of his primary means of livelihood.
“What will we do without passengers? We will always eat salt with rice,” said Bastion, the family breadwinner.
He said the city government must work on a scheme that will benefit all parties.
For Maribel Melgar, an office worker, the BRT will be a better alternative to jeepneys since it would address two issues: traffic congestion and safety.
Melgar, a mother of three, travels everyday from her house in Mandaue, passing through Talamban where traffic is unbearable.
“Most of the jeepney drivers do not unload and load in the designated areas even if the signs are clear that you should load and unload in the proper places. Some park their jeepneys on the road itself, causing traffic,” she said.
However, she said, the BRT operators should make sure that everyone could afford the fare rates. Otherwise, she said, it would defeat the purpose of building the system.
Under study
Villarete said the displacement of jeepney drivers had been taken into consideration. “There will be changes and negative impacts, but the feasibility study will incorporate all possible means of minimizing negative impacts and alleviating them so that no sector will be left behind,” he said.
As for fare rates, Villarete said the pre-feasibility study indicated that the system had a benefit cost ratio of 2.0+. This means that if the BRT will have the same rate as jeepneys, it can be operated “without loss and will possibly work with a profit,” he said.
In Cebu, jeepney passengers pay P6.50 for the first five kilometers. “How much more if we have a little higher rate?” Villarete said.
The study also showed that clients were actually willing to pay more, considering that the buses would be much faster and more comfortable than the jeepneys, he added.
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By: Cris Evert Lato
Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer, Sept. 18, 2010
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