Baguio braces for Panagbenga traffic, garbage

Floats featuring different designs using flowers grown in Benguet province draw tourists to the summer capital during the annual Panagbenga. —EV ESPIRITU

BAGUIO CITY—Tourists planning to watch the street dances on Saturday and the floral parade on Sunday in this year’s Panagbenga (Baguio Flower Festival) would need to brace for slow traffic flow and garbage collection.

Traffic policemen are coordinating with their counterparts overseeing the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEx) to ease traffic flow to this city for the festival.

Mayor Mauricio Domogan, who chairs the Baguio Flower Festival Foundation Inc., said he was caught in a traffic gridlock on TPLEx in Binalonan town, Pangasinan province, on Feb. 15.

The expressway has reduced travel time from Metro Manila to Baguio to three hours, but the gridlock on Feb. 15 lasted for four hours, he said.

Parking areas

This weekend, heavy traffic is expected along roads leading to the central business district here where main streets, like Session and Harrison roads and Magsaysay Avenue, are closed for the street bazaar and other activities until March 4.

Domogan said some government offices and private and public schools had offered their parking areas for the expected influx of vehicles.

The city government also directed its garbage hauling contractor to ship out trash to a landfill in Urdaneta City. An average of 400 tons of waste is generated on festival weekend, based on previous Panagbenga.

Police said 1,170 policemen and 1,120 volunteers would be deployed to the parade areas as well as emergency medical stations.

Twenty-seven performing groups will participate in the street dance parade on Saturday. They will be joined by delegates from the provinces of Aurora, Kalinga, Pangasinan and La Union.

Domogan said politicians could join the festivities but they would have to follow rules set by the festival organizers.

“We cannot prevent them from taking advantage [of the parade] but they should not break the line and there should be no [distribution] of leaflets or T-shirts,” he said. —KARLSTON LAPNITEN