BRT PACKAGE 1. Construction workers scrape the asphalt at the inner lanes of the Osmeña Boulevard where the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Project Phase 1 will stand in Cebu City in this undated photo. The Cebu BRT Project Management Office has appealed to the public to bear with the inconvenience brought by the ongoing civil works. (Photo courtesy of Cebu BRT Project Management Office)
CEBU CITY – The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Project Management Office on Wednesday appealed to Cebuanos to bear with the "short-term inconvenience" as construction of its Package 1 creates traffic jams during rush hours.
Engr. Norvin Imbong, BRT project manager, said motorists should take alternate routes to avoid being stuck along the Osmeña Boulevard where the two segments for Package 1 are being constructed.
“DOTr (Department of Transportation) is working hard to lessen the impact of the project on the motorists and the riding public. We are in close coordination with the Cebu City government, Cebu City Traffic Office (CCTO), the Cebu City Police Office, and the transport sector in setting up measures to ease traffic in the area,” Imbong told the Philippine News Agency in an interview.
The CCTO has been issuing advisories to motorists, especially to commuters, to take other peripheral roads and allow the road known by many as Jones Avenue to serve as an emergency corridor due to the presence of at least six public and private hospitals in the area. Jones Avenue is now called Osmeña Boulevard.
Placing of fences and barriers in the three-lane access to and from the Fuente Osmeña Rotunda and Cebu Provincial Capitol has created traffic congestion.
"We are doing all efforts to avoid our fences from encroaching the second lane as construction works are being done on only one, the inner lane. But we can't avoid encroaching a little bit in the second lane as our contractors need ample area so as not to compromise the quality of their works," Imbong said.
He, however, said that such inconvenience will be solved as soon as the BRT becomes operational.
The DOTr, Imbong said, is exerting its utmost effort to finish the Package 1 within schedule in the last quarter of this year.
Cebu BRT project Phase 1 has three packages with the first package covering a distance of 2.38 kilometers from the Cebu South Bus Terminal (CSBT) on N. Bacalso Avenue to the front of the capitol building along Osmeña Boulevard.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. led the launching of Package 1 on Feb. 27 this year. (PNA)
