Metro plan 2 ‘long overdue’

With traffic choking the cities and the rise of new flyovers drawing opposition, two Cebuano urban planners yesterday said there was an “absolute need” for expert planning  and visionary leaders.

For Metro Cebu, the need for a new study is “long overdue”, said Dr. Primitivo Cal, guest speaker in the second Sustainable Cities Dialogues, a multi-sectoral forum held at the CAP Center in Osmena Boulevard.

The last comprehensive study made was done over 30 years ago by the government, the Mero Cebu Land Use and Transportation Study (MCLUTS) from 1978 to 1988.

He said the creation of a Metro Cebu Development Authority to coordinate  growth was one of the proposals that never got imlemented.

Cal, a former transportation undersecretary, and a pioneer engineer in the MCLUTS, said a second study should be made to chart the needs for Metro Cebu for the next 20 years.

He said flyovers, which were never recommended in the MCLUTS as traffic solutions, can’t be taken alone without considering the entire road network or else you would end up “cueing traffic” on the overpasses without solving congestion.

NO POLITICS

Architect Omar Maxwell Espina, a reactor in the forum, said “we see the absolute need to do a MCLUTS 2.”

“Planning should be insulated from politics” and be “objective” said the former dean of the College of Architecture and Fine Arts of the University of San Carlos.

He said  there were “high hopes” to update the transport study for Metro Cebu because the ingredients were there – the technical team and the model for the study.

“We only need a good set of leaders in the metropolis” to carry it forward, he said.

And with the 2013 elections approching, “we need to choose leaders who believe in planning, who are forward thinking, willing to listen to experts and the governed, and coordinate with other leaders in the metropolis.”

The forum yesterday was organized by the Movement for a Livable Cebu, a group that grew out of last year’s lobby to oppose the rise of new flyovers in Lahug in front of the Asilo dela Milagrosa and in M.J. Cuenco avenue.

About 440 people attended yesterday’s forum, a sign of the growing citizens movement which has widened its mission to campaign for a  Cebu with pedestrian sidewalks, a clean environment, parks and urban green spaces, and a viable mass transit.

The cost of a new transport study, however, remains a big question.

Some quarters earlier estimated it would take P50 million to update the MCLUTS, which was previously funded by foreign aid.

Espina said it  is now the “private sector pushing” the momentum for well planned growth of Metro Cebu. He cited the Mega Cebu initiative of business chambers and the broader sector campaign of MLM, where he is one of the convenors.

Dr. Cal, who works in a private consultancy group in Manila, said next steps should be to lobby for a MCLUTS 2 with the  Department of Transportation and Communication or the Department of Public Works and Highways as the lead agency.

An alternative, he said, is to let a non-government organization commission the study, and have a steering committee with government and private sector representatives.

The scope would be the same as MCLUTS – to produce a structural plan for Metro Cebu for the next 20 years.   The effort should alo provide technical aid to towns and cities in Metro Cebu to address critical transportation and traffic issues.

The MCLUTS  started  in 1978 in the term of Gov. Eduardo Gullas as chairman of the Metro Cebu Council.

It  produced the Mandaue Reclamation , the Cebu City South Reclamation, Mactan tourism area,  the South Bus Terminal, Cebu City’s modern traffic signal system, the second Mactan Bridge and several new, wider  roads: MJ Cuenco to P. del Rosario, F. Cabahug Extention to H. Cortes Street, and other arterial roads.

However, several MCLUTS proposals were left unimplemented.

The Metro Cebu Developmetn Authority was never created.

Several new roads were not expanded  such as the Gov. Cuenco  Avenue . The  two flyovers later  built there may not have been needed if the roads were widened earlier.

Also left undone was the H. Cortes Street Extension to a. Abellana Street in Mandaue City, as well as the circumfernetial road from A. Fortuna to the South Road, and the Talamban to Liloan Northern Ring Road.

Yesterday’s  forum Sustainable Cities Dialogues 2 had the slogan “There is no Cebu without U! (Ato ni, Bai!)”

Cal, former dean of the University of the Philippines-School of Urban and Regional Planning (UP-SURP), is now based in Manila.

Tapping Cebuanos who are technically-equipped and willing to help was suggested by panel reactor, former NEDA regional director Rey Crystal.

“Get technical people on the payroll or as consultants to do the project study or at least assist the existing technical body in creating the study,” he stressed.

He said to get from a vision to reality, you need a body to do planning and to carry it forward, to ‘baby sit and nurture it” over the next 20 years.

He said local officials suffer a “time warp hole” because they only concern themselves with what can be done during their three-year term and don’t look beyond that.

This leads to a “dysfunctional” setup of having people with a short term view in charge of development.