More voices in flyover debate

While some Cebu City businessmen, still unidentified,  are willing to put their money where their mouth is to help finance the crafting of a  transportation master plan, they would rather, as businessman Bunny Pages said, have the government realign part of  the P600 million intended for Cebu City’s two flyover projects for this purpose.

The latest to join the clamor against new flyovers  are  ecology lawyers, who lost no time in announcing plans to file a petition against the Department of Public Works and Highways to stop implementation of the flyover projects.

The ecology advocates lend “street cred” to the new citizens movement’s  bid to set aside  the projects in favor of road widening and a  master plan, twin moves  being supported by Mayor Michael Rama and several businessmen.

They have an uphill battle  since Rep. Tomas Osmeña , the city’s former mayor, is siding with Rep. Rachel del Mar of Cebu City’s north district and the City Council is backing the flyover projects.

Who will Malacañang listen to?

While we are not ruling out the Aquino administration making a turn-around and canceling the flyover projects in favor of road-widening, it would take unconventional pressure  to stop the wheels of bureaucracy  since the projects are scheduled for implementation this year.  (Del Mar said the sub-structures have already been bidded out.)

The anti-flyover  movement is aware of  the powerful forces  in high places that will not allow the flyovers to be delayed or killed.

The Banilad-Talamban flyover was built and opened in 2008 despite an outcry by private subdivisions and the group of Pages.

Will it be the same ending in this round?

What’s different in the battle today is that more voices are being heard from a wider range of individuals and groups.

It is no longer just the complaints of   well-heeled residents and business owners in Banilad.

Private architects, civil engineers and even the dean of the University of San Carlos school of architecture have come out to  advance   sober and technical reasons for the public to reexamine the way flyovers as public infrastructure are harming, not helping Cebu City’s urban growth.

The most dramatic objection came last week from the Cebu City Traffic Operations Management (Citom) board, which called the two proposed  flyovers  “extremely inefficient” and “the wrong solution to the wrong problem”

This frames the issue as a choice of  vision: What quality of life do we want  for Metro Cebu with its tangled traffic and narrow roads?  And who should make that choice?

Asked in this manner, the flyover debate goes beyond a contest of which politician is more powerful in  getting his or her way.