DPWH to prioritize bike lane for frontliners

Along with plans to build a bike lane along the Ortigas-Bonifacio Global City Bridge, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) also promised to prioritize pop-up bike lanes along hospital routes to assist frontliners and other employees looking for ways to get to work amid a lack of public transport.

During an online webinar hosted by environmental advocate and Antique Rep. Loren Legarda on Thursday, DPWH assistant secretary Anna Marie Lamentillo said that they were working on several bike lane projects nationwide as the country transitions to a sustainable “new normal.”

One such project was the 7-km Laguna Lake Highway, the first to have built-in protected and segregated bike lanes.

The DPWH will be using the Laguna Lake Highway template to establish bike lanes along the ongoing BGC-Ortigas Link Bridge, which is part of the Edsa decongestion project. The project is expected to be completed by 2021, Lamentillo said.

A short-term project, she added, was the establishment of hospital pop-up bicycle lanes for front-liners. The DPWH is now identifying and crafting routes “as soon as all the agencies are able to report to the Department of Health and local government units,” she added.

University of the Philippines-College of Medicine professor Dr. Antonio Dans crafted the original proposal for a bike network linking four major hospitals in Metro Manila. These were the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) on Taft Avenue, Ospital ng Maynila on Quirino Avenue, Manila Doctors Hospital and Manila Medical Center, both on United Nations Avenue.