MindanaoToday.com | CdeO new PUV routes lack information drive
By: Uriel Quilinguing
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – A number of netizens took to social media to vent their standpoints on the partial implementation of the Local Public Transport Route Plan (LPTRP) on Monday, September 16, that caused confusions and delays affecting hundreds of commuters here.
Lead implementor Roads and Traffic Administration (RTA) of the city government, whose enforcement personnel are deputized by the Land Transportation, Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB), posted the advisory online on the opening of 15 new routes of modernized public utility vehicles (PUV) under the LTFRB-approved LPTRP on Thursday, September 12.
The two postings on RTA official Facebook account generated 177 reactions, 66 comments, and were shared 697 times, as of 9:50 pm on Monday, September 16, when the 15 new public transport routes were implemented. City Hall’s information office reposted the same on its Facebook wall and there 59 views, 52 of them reacted while only five commented.
RTA responded to the comments by providing the link back to its Facebook postings when netizens asked: Where’s the plan? Maps of the 15 newly opened routes were attached to the RTA online posts, though some suggested improvements to make these maps viewer-friendly with clearer graphics and larger font size for the labels.
One netizen suggested that there should have been a public hearing. Another said there should have been a dry-run on a weekend so that students—most of them commuting—would know and for workers to adjust their schedules. A City Hall employee said she has to leave for work an hour earlier now because the new route is longer than the old one.
A member of the Canitoan Transport Cooperative commented that the lack of information to drivers and the riding public caused confusions, some took the new route while others kept the old. Many commuters waited long not knowing the modernized jeepneys have already changed their routes.
Earlier, RTA chief Nonito Oclarit said the new routes under the LPTRP are divided into rationalized routes and developmental routes. Rationalized routes are existing routes that were modified or merged with other routes, while developmental routes were not covered previously by PUVs but have already been included in the transport route plan.
The 15 new PUV routes include the 9.2-kilometer (km) round-trip (RT) Lapasan-Cogon route in District 2 of the city while the other 14 are all in District 1 involving PUV routes serving six rural and semi-rural/semi-urban barangays, namely Bayabas, Balulang, Bonbon, Bulua, Canitoan, and Dansolihon. Details on these are available in the Facebook account of the RTA.
Three months ago, Councilor Romeo Calizo who chairs the City Council’s Committee on Public Utilities, said the modernized PUVs in the city are still insufficient and that only 43 out of the LPTRP-identified 79 routes are being served.Monday’s partial implementation of the 15 new routes for modernized PUVs was part of the 61 new routes that were opened in February this year.
LTFRB-10 then has listed 139 routes under the approved LPTRP of the city and claimed that compliance of the PUV Modernization Program in Cagayan de Oro was already 96 percent. It was only 65 percent in the entire Northern Mindanao region. (MT)
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