Amid complaints, bus hub expansion eyed

Expect more adjustments to be made at the new bus depot in Parañaque City while the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) experiences “birth pains” on the first few days of its operation.

MMDA chair Francis Tolentino raised the possibility of extending the 1.4-hectare Southwest Integrated Transport Terminal (SITT) to an adjacent one-hectare lot owned by the Philippine Reclamation Authority, following complaints that the provincial buses now required to stop there were being forced to make a long queue and stall traffic because the site was too small.

“This can serve as a staging area for those buses waiting for their turn,” Tolentino said on Thursday when he gave reporters a tour of the possible location of the terminal’s extension.

This was in response to an observation from a transport group affected by SITT’s operation since Aug. 6. The terminal limits the route of buses coming from Cavite and Batangas provinces as part of a Palace-backed scheme to decongest major roads in Metro Manila.

Nes Martinez, president of the United Cavite Bus Transport, earlier noted that the 1.4-hectare terminal was supposedly designed to receive and dispatch around 900 buses from these provinces a day, yet a bus company in Silang, Cavite required a nine-hectare area  for a fleet of 50 buses only.

Martinez noted that since the new terminal was too small, incoming buses were being forced to form a long line to unload passengers along Macapagal Avenue.

“Birth pains” may be a mild way of describing the chaos marking SITT’s first three days of operations, during which thousands of passengers were stranded or were forced to wait long for their next ride after getting off at the terminal.

Tolentino said it was discovered early on that some bus drivers had found a way to get ahead in line by asking passengers to get off even while they were still far from the terminal.

“They empty their buses before reaching the terminal so they will be dispatched immediately. We have already learned about this scheme and tried to correct it,” Tolentino said. “We are slowly changing the people’s habits. It’s really not right that commuters can board and disembark anywhere they want.”

The MMDA chief also reiterated that the SITT was only a temporary hub and that a permanent terminal would soon be constructed on a five-hectare lot also owned by the PRA, just 30 meters away from SITT.

But amid mounting complaints, the SITT and the whole concept behind it found a supporter in the transport group 1-Utak.

The group’s chair, lawyer Vigor Mendoza, said the project was a work in progress and that “all the confusion and disorder is but normal since this is the first time Metro Manila is doing this. It’s a matter of improving the system’s flow.”