Mayor vows to act on Lucena City’s traffic woes

LUCENA City Vice Mayor Roderick Alcala. FILE PHOTO

LUCENA CITY, Quezon—Long the bane of motorists and residents, the perennial traffic problem here  has finally caught the attention of the city’s top official.

“I will act on the matter,” Lucena Mayor Roderick Alcala said in a text message to the Philippine Daily Inquirer as he promised to enforce local traffic ordinances amid rising complaints over the lack of consistency in the managing of traffic in Lucena.

Local businessmen, residents and concerned motorists have complained that traffic ordinances, particularly those delineating no-parking zones along major streets, have long been ignored by irresponsible motorists.

A local businessman noted that while parking on both sides of the entire stretch of Quezon Avenue is prohibited—several steel signs proclaiming it so—at no time has either side of the main avenue been clear of illegally parked vehicles.

“Because the violators are not afraid that they will be apprehended, traffic violations have become the norm,” said the businessman, who asked not to be named lest he earn the ire of local officials.

John Padillo, a senior high school student, lamented that rules on pedestrian lanes were being ignored by both motorists and pedestrians, mostly students like him.

“Crossing through the pedestrian lane is a basic traffic rule. If this simple law is being flagrantly violated, all other road ordinances are bound to be similarly ignored,” said the student.

Thousands of motorcycles and tricycles, many of them unregistered, roam the city freely, compounding the traffic problems.

Jaime de Mesa, chief of Lucena traffic enforcers, denied that his men have been negligent in implementing local traffic laws.

“We’ve been implementing traffic laws but due to lack of traffic enforcers, we sometimes could not sustain the operation,” De Mesa said in a phone interview on Thursday.

He said his office has only 28 traffic enforcers, or a dozen short of the ideal 40. “We only have five tire locks and four patrol vehicles,” De Mesa said.

He said the local government, upon Alcala’s directive, would soon embark on a comprehensive plan to address the traffic situation.

Superintendent Rey Allen Co, Lucena police chief, said road traffic was not the responsibility of the police force.

“We’re only acting as support to the civilian traffic enforcers,” Co said.

Co said the police will help in the drafting of a new traffic plan for the city.