BACOLOD CITY — The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) will deploy a 15-man team of technical experts here in December to study the city’s traffic situation.
Mayor Evelio Leonardia confirmed this after meeting with MMDA officials led by chairman Danilo Lim at the agency’s head office in Manila on Tuesday.
The team, to be led by Traffic and Engineering Center director Neomie Recio, will be deployed to Bacolod from Dec. 2 to Dec. 15, the mayor said.
The results of the MMDA evaluation will be utilized for the crafting of “Traffic Master Plan for Bacolod City.”
“The MMDA, I believe, has the capabilities, expertise and competence to help us on this. That is why we are dealing with no less than the chairman himself, General Danilo Lim, and he was so gracious because he has also visited Bacolod. He assured us that MMDA will give us the best,” Leonardia said.
The mayor noted that a traffic master plan could cost millions if done by private groups, but MMDA is assisting Bacolod City for free.
He said the city government has to find ways and means to remedy the impact of traffic in Bacolod.
“One of these, I believe, and a major remedy at that, is coming up with a master plan for Bacolod,” the mayor said.
Data from the Land Transportation Office 6 (Western Visayas) showed that Bacolod has 92,827 motor vehicles registered in 2017, or 7,849 more than the 84,978 registered in 2016.
Leonardia said it is good news because it shows the people of Bacolod have the purchasing power, but also bad news because it adds to the traffic volume.
Bacolod City alone accounts for 22.31 percent of the total 416,136 motor vehicles registered in Region 6 last year.
Negros Occidental, including Bacolod City, has 169,739 motor vehicles registered in 2017, comprising 40.79 percent of the total registration among all the six provinces in Western Visayas. (Nanette Guadalquiver/PNA)
