Monday, January 23, 2012
CEBU City Mayor Michael Rama will be out of City Hall for almost two weeks as he will be spending a vacation outside the country and will be checking the bus rapid transit (BRT) of India.
The mayor already left for Singapore last Saturday to take a five-day rest after his busy schedule preparing for the Sinulog 2012 celebration.
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On Jan. 26, Rama will fly to India for a week of technical study mission. The mayor will be looking into the BRT system of Delhi and Ahmedabad.
Rama will be meeting representatives from the Asian Development Bank-Cities Development Initiative for Asia (ADB-CDIA) as well as the City’s BRT steering committee that includes City Traffic Operations Management executive director Atty.
Rafael Yap, City Planning Development Office chief Engr. Alipio Bacalso and Roberto Varquez of the Cebu Investment Promotions Center.
The BRT steering committee will leave the country for India on Tuesday yet.
In an interview, Varquez said they will be observing the whole BRT system in India, its ticketing process and the kind of bus it uses, among others.
Varquez said the City plans to replicate India’s BRT system at the 302-hectare South
Road Properties (SRP). The first roll- out of the BRT at SRP is targeted to be in the second half of 2013 when SM’s Mall will be finished.
The team’s trip to India will be at no cost to the City Government as it will be sponsored by the ADB-CDIA.
ADB-CDIA is the one who has been providing technical assistance to the City for the development of the SRP utilities that includes transportation, which is the BRT, wastewater treatment facility, solid waste management, district cooling, and other utilities.
In India, Ahmedabad is said to be the first city to have adopted a BRT system.
Ahmedabad’s BRT system runs specially designed buses with wide doors on both sides and it features electronic fare collection, centralized control and user information system, among others.
The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of the United States has described the BRT system in Ahmedabad as “the best practice of BRT in the South Asia.”
On the other hand, the BRT system in Delhi is not “grade-separated,” which means that the bus runs at the same level as normal traffic and shares the same traffic signals.
Delhi’s BRT system provides dedicated lanes for pedestrian and non-motorized vehicles like cycles and rickshaws, besides giving priority to buses.
Rama, together with the BRT steering committee, is expected to be back in the city on Feb. 3.
Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on January 23, 2012.
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