Motoring Today Column

Jul 31, 2019

The biggest news in motoring last week was the opening of the first section of the Cavitex C5 Southlink — the 2.2-kilometer flyover crossing South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) traversing Taguig and Pasay City.

For people like me who are living in the south, that means travel time will be significantly cut when we drive from our area to Taguig City.

Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Mark Villar said what motorists long to hear: "This is a vital project that will cut travel time in half from the usual 1.5 hours spent to cross from Villamor Airbase, Pasay area to Taguig City. With 3 lanes in each direction of this flyover, passage of the anticipated 8,000 vehicles will be eased when they use the flyover."

The C5 Link flyover is now accessible to vehicles plying between Fort Bonifacio, C.P. Garcia (C5), Taguig City, Parañaque City, Las Piñas City and Pasay City. The alignment features the bridge that crosses Metro Manila Skyway (at-grade) and South Luzon Expressway (SLEX).

This is the second public-private partnership with Metro Pacific Tollways Corporation (MPTC) to open this year. Last Feb. 10, they opened the NLEX Harbor Link Segment 10.

The construction of the next 2.1-kilometer section between Merville and Sucat, Las Piñas City will start soon and will eventually connect to theParanaque side of Cavitex by 2022.

Aside from the Cavitex and Cavite-Laguna Expressway (CALAX ) network in the South of Manila, MPTC's portfolio includes the concessions for theNorth Luzon Expressway (NLEX), theSubic-Clark Tarlac Expressway (SCTEX), theNLEX Connector Road, and theCebu-Cordova Link Expressway (CCLEX) in Cebu.

Speed limit enforcement

Many times, speed has been a major factor in road accidents which caused the loss of lives.

We all know that only too well, reading about many tragic road accidents and even sometimes watching how they happen, courtesy of the thousands of well-positioned CCTV cameras around us - or even from the dash cams of the victims' cars.

There has been government action on enforcing speed limits through a Joint Memorandum Circular (JMC) 2018-001, which provides Local Government Units (LGUs) with standards and guidelines on speed limit setting, road classification, and road crash data collection.

The problem seems to be the gray areas in speed limit enforcement. In some cases, it is even the setting of the speed limit that suits specific roads. And in most cases, it is the actual enforcement of a speed limit that is the problem. For example, do all LGUs have enough policemen or traffic enforcers to monitor major roads to enforce speed limits?

Last week there was a move to strengthen speed limit enforcement around the country with the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and Land Transportation Office (LTO) partnering with ImagineLaw to conduct a series of speed enforcement trainings.

The partnership was formalized in the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), led by DOTr Undersecretary for Road Transport and Infrastructure Mark Richmund de Leon and LTO Assistant Secretary Edgar Galvante.

The MOU will initiate activities that will assist LGUs in setting and enforcing speed limits, such as regional trainings on setting and enforcing speed limits which have been ongoing since May last year. There will also be a speed enforcement training-of-trainers for law enforcers from LTO, Philippine National Police - Highway Patrol Group (PNP-HPG), and Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA).

ImagineLaw Executive Director Sophia Monica San Luis presented an update on the implementation of the policy, naming the LGUs that have enacted speed limit ordinances in the last year: municipalities of Bontoc, General Mariano Alvarez and General Trias, Cavite; Sta. Maria, Laguna; Antipolo, Rizal; Pagbilao and Tiaong, Quezon; Guinobatan, Albay; Balatan, Camarines Sur; and Consolacion, Cebu.

The training programs will aim to give all LGUs the capacity to enforce speed limits and ultimately reduce the number of fatal road deaths around the country.

"Right now, LTO is crafting measures that can be implemented by our enforcers, but training them on how to enforce it would be necessary. That is why we will coordinate with our LGU counterparts to help us come up with a better measure," Asec. Galvante said.

Clear the public roads

Metro Manila mayors have been ordered to clear the public roads of vendors, obstructions and illegal structures to support efforts to solve the traffic problems.

Last week, the Metro Manila mayors were called to a meeting with the officials of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and the Metro Manila Council (MMC) where they were asked to take an inventory on all public roads in their jurisdictions.

"The inventory of road network can be audited so that we can identify which road network has problem of congestion because of sidewalks and streets being occupied by illegal structures or illegal occupants," said Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Undersecretary Epimaco Densing III.

MMDA Chairman Danilo Lim , who presided the meeting, asked the mayors to start with the national roads, Mabuhay lanes and identified roads that serve as alternative routes where parking and illegal structures must not be allowed.

A good idea that came up during the meeting came from the MMDA chairman who suggested that open spaces can be converted into parking areas for motorists who do not have a space to park their vehicles.

Happy Motoring!!!

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