Mindanaotoday.com | LTFRB-10 opens 78 new routes in Cagayan de Oro
By: Uriel Quilinguing
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Seventy-eight new routes for “modernized” public utility vehicles in Cagayan de Oro have been approved for transport cooperatives to serve, a Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board official said Wednesday, January 25.
LTFRB-10 Regional Director Aminoden Guro disclosed this in a forum at the Cagayan de Oro Press Club in response to complaints from commuters of overcrowding, refusal to render service, and incidents of stranded passengers.
Guro said the city government’s formulation, evaluation, approval, and adoption of a Local Public Transport Route Plan (LPTRP) hastened the opening of new PUV routes; 31 in the first and 47 in the second congressional districts.
The LPTRP, he said, is required in the issuance of PUV franchise and before loans are released by government banks to transport coops under the PUV Modernization Program since 2017. Many PUVMP loan applications have been pending in the absence of LPTRP document.
Guro said the LPTRP – details route network with specific modes of transportation and required number of units per mode for delivery of transport services – was used for a win-win solution to “conflict” of two transport coops in Manolo Fortich and Libona towns in Bukidnon.
Meanwhile, the traditional PUVs (jeepneys) will stay in areas where there are no modernized PUVs using Euro 5 fuel, airconditioned, with handbrake, dashcam, speedometer, and seatbelts, the LTFRB-10 chief said.
But Guro said “delapidated” jeepneys, 15 years and above, have to go and these are the ones that their sister-agency, the Land Transportation Office-10 would no longer register as a roadworthy PUV.
Regionwide, he said, there are about 6,000 traditional PUV jeepneys and serve as main mode of transportation in far-flung areas of Bukidnon province.
Phaseout of traditional PUV jeepneys was first set June 30, 2021 with owners compensated per unit depending on the condition of the vehicles, but this was reset to December 2022 due to the pandemic.
A Certificate of Roadworthiness from the LTO is being required before the LTFRB could grant a provisional authority for traditional PUV jeepneys to be on the road, Guro said.
###