DPWH mistake causes Baguio traffic jam

BAGUIO CITY—Lessons from the 2011 simultaneous road works, which  were blamed for the economic slowdown in many Luzon provinces, have apparently not sunk in.

Officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) admitted they had not coordinated with the police on their first Baguio road repavement work for 2012, after being confronted by irate residents and officials about the traffic mess it spawned on Marcos Highway here.

Since Jan. 3, travel from Manila to Baguio has been stretched by two hours because of the Marcos Highway construction, and bus companies have been absorbing the complaints of tourists as well as students and employees who travel daily from Pangasinan and La Union, said Apollo Padagas, assistant terminal manager of Victory Liner Inc.

“We were surprised because everybody was blaming everybody [about the traffic jams at Marcos Highway],” Chief Supt. Benjamin Magalong, Cordillera police director, said at a public transport forum on Thursday.

An official from the Baguio engineering district apologized for the miscommunication, saying the contractor, Goldrich Construction, was allowed to fast-track the repavement and installation of fresh concrete drain pipes along a 1.378-kilometer stretch of Marcos Highway.

In the process, the agency failed to communicate with other agencies, including the police, Magalong was told.

Padagas said bus operators have urged the government to allow them to use Kennon Road instead while work continues on Marcos Highway, a major route connecting Baguio with Central Luzon and Metro Manila.

He said removing buses from the route taken by private cars and jeepneys may help ease traffic flow.

“But we have to contend with the DPWH policy that only vehicles weighing less than 10 tons may travel through Kennon Road. The average commuter bus weighs 13 tons. On Thursday, we brought in a busload of mountaineers who were about to climb Mt. Pulag [in Kabayan, Benguet]. They were not happy,” he said.

“Victory could reactivate minibuses, which used to ferry Pangasinan and La Union passengers through Kennon Road. It was stopped when the Kennon Road ban on buses took effect,” Padagas said.

He said the police had considered rerouting bus trips again through Naguilian Road, which it enforced in the last months of 2011 to maintain traffic flow.

“But we could not charge passengers for the extra miles since this was not their fault. Victory Liner shouldered up to P1 million in additional diesel expenses because of the rerouting,” he said.

A section of Naguilian Road was also closed for months last year to allow road repavement, slowing traffic to a crawl for three months, and exacerbating bus expenditures, he said.

Many motorists residing on Marcos Highway have been using Naguilian Road, exiting through the Asin Road to cross Marcos Highway. But instead of improving traffic flow, police now have to deal with slow traffic in both Marcos Highway and Naguilian Road.

The Baguio engineering district said 18 road projects are scheduled for the year, although most of these would be implemented after the Baguio flower festival parade at the end of February and Holy Week in March.

At a tourism conference mounted by the Department of Tourism on Wednesday, DOT Cordillera Director Purificacion Molintas said most of the road projects programmed by the DPWH until 2016 fulfill the infrastructure demands for improving countryside tourism.

But a hotel owner here said tourism stakeholders could not condone how the road projects had been executed so far. Vincent Cabreza, with a report from Plarlene Juliane Valentos, Inquirer Northern Luzon