The City Hall of General Santos City. (PNA GenSan file photo)
GENERAL SANTOS CITY — The city government will need some time before it can fully comply with the ban against tricycles — the city’s main mode of public transportation — on national roads.
City Administrator Arnel Zapatos said Thursday it is currently difficult for the city to implement the prohibition, as ordered anew by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), due to the area’s “geographical setup.”
Zapatos said portions of the national highway here have long been part of the regular route of tricycles, especially those plying the outlying barangays.
“We can’t just stop tricycles from passing parts of the national (road) due to the lack of alternative routes,” he told reporters.
But Zapatos noted that the local government is willing to comply with the DILG’s directive and it is currently working on some measures to rationalize the routes of tricycles.
He said they are targeting the full rollout by June or July of the clustering of tricycle operations.
The move will divide tricycles into four color-coded clusters — red, green, pink and white — and establish specific routes for them.
Zapatos said they are also pushing for the entry of more modern jeepneys in the city’s 14 established routes to cater to passengers in the interior barangays.
Based on studies, he said the city needs at least 900 units of modern jeepneys to cover for all the routes created under the Local Public Transport Route Plan, which was a component of the national government’s Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program.
“We’re not there yet in terms of filling up these routes but we’re targeting to complete the transition in two years,” he added. (PNA)
