DAVAO CITY -- A city councilor is pushing for the transfer of the Davao City Overland Transport Terminal (DCOTT) outside the city proper to ease traffic along at the Ecoland area.
Councilor Conrado Baluran, chair of the Committee on Transportation, said it's about time to transfer the city's public transport terminal due to the volume of vehicles coming in and out of the city.
Baluran said he is moving for the amendment of Section 4 of the City Ordinance No. 0192 series of 1986 which states that all public buses should unload and load passengers at DCOTT.
"It is timely to decongest our DCOTT by establishing satellite terminals outside the city central District," he said.
Baluran suggested the establishment of terminals in the areas of Barangay Dumoy for the buses coming from the south, Catalunan Pequeño for the buses from Cagayan de Oro City and Bukidnon, and Buhangin area for the north-bound buses.
"With this setup, it would not only ease our thoroughfares but make our community more convenient especially to those who are living in the places being mentioned," he said.
He said based on record, there are 700 Public Utility Buses (PUB) that come and go in the city during ordinary days and 1,200 PUBs on special seasons such as Christmas and Holy Week.
"With the surmounted statistics, it is undeniable that public buses have become one of the prevailing reasons for traffic congestion," Baluran said.
He said the concentration of vehicle influx presses pressure on the terminal site to provide counter-measures to accommodate the increase of not only the commuters but also with the number of buses serving them.
Baluran said that with the transfer of the terminal, he is confident of revenue increase of DCOTT with an expected increase of buses to serve between the city and the provinces.
"For 2017 alone, DCOTT reached almost P50 million and I am definite that there will an increase in revenues since there are more buses that will be coming in and out in the city due to more accessible roads," he said. (Armando Fenequito Jr/PNA)
