‘… since the DOTr and the LTFRB took on the “rush-hour challenge,” we are one with thousands of commuters in watching and monitoring how these transport officials will make good their word.’
BOTH President Ferdinand Marcos and the new leadership in the Department of Transportation (DOTr) have realized early on that the problems in the land and rail transport sectors are huge and urgent.
Jaime Bautista, the new transportation secretary whose background is aviation and maritime, even tried to ride the MRT 3 incognito, providing him a personal, close-up view of the traffic situation along EDSA.
The drivers, operators and commuters have expressed initial relief that the Department of Transportation and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) have crafted an action plan to rationalize the use of the EDSA Carousel Busway. This was in answer to the transport group’s rush-hour challenge to the transport officials.
Concrete action on this plan will greatly redound to the benefit of thousands of commuters using the busway carousel service in commuting from their homes to their schools and offices, and back. The intended beneficiaries are so hopeful that their commuting problems would soon be alleviated that they are now following up with the DOTr on any new development on this concern, noting that the action plan was crafted in the middle of July.
Among the reforms proffered by the DOTr were the deployment of 440 buses instead of the usual 200 units in the busway; reducing the backlog of payables to bus operators; and opening a terminal in the north end of the busway in Monumento, Caloocan City similar to the PITX in the south.
“Three weeks have already passed since the DOTr and the LTFRB revealed their action plan for the EDSA Busway. We want to know if there is any progress as the situation of EDSA Carousel passengers has hardly improved,” commuters’ group The Passenger Forum said.
TPF convener Primo Morillo noted that Transportation Secretary Bautista “inherited a transport situation that commuters and transport workers say is in crisis, with insufficient transport capacity only worsened by skyrocketing gas prices. Already, photos of long lines of commuters snaking around whole streets are becoming commonplace on social media once again.”
But since the DOTr and the LTFRB took on the “rush-hour challenge,” we are one with thousands of commuters in watching and monitoring how these transport officials will make good their word.
