PR
Seeing the urgency to find the quickest solution to ease the transportation crisis caused by the suspension of the Light Rail Transit 2 (LRT2) operation and the ongoing repair of the South Luzon Expressway, House Transportation Committee Chair Samar Rep. Edgar Mary Sarmiento, has called for an emergency meeting Wednesday with all stakeholders in the transport sector.
Sarmiento said he has called for the meeting hoping to find the quickest, most doable and most practical solution to fill the vacuum that was caused by the suspension of the LRT2 operations and ease the burden of commuters and motorists travelling along SLEX following the closure of certain portions of its northbound outermost lane.
Invited to attend the hearing are officials of the DoTr, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB, the Light Railway Transit Authority (LRTA), Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA), Department of Interior and Local Government(DILG), Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), PNP-Highway Patrol Group(PNP-HPG), Light Rail Manila Corporation (LRMC), SLEX management and city bus operators.
Sarmiento said that suspension of the LRT2 operations which could last up to nine months for its Santolan-Anonas segment, could affect the mobility of at least 200,000 passengers daily. He said the government must be able to provide them with alternative transportation as this could mean economic dislocation for most of them.
“We are talking about hundreds of thousands of Filipinos who would lose their means of mobility because of this suspension. We are now in the middle of a transportation crisis and we should really move quickly to solve this,” Sarmiento said.
On the other hand, the “carmageddon” along SLEX must also be addressed as the ongoing Skyway construction that led to the closure of some portions of the highway could last until the latter part of 2020.
Sarmiento said in tomorrow’s hearing, his panel would also want concerned government agencies to make a presentation of their traffic management plan in the light of the LRT2 suspension and the SLEX repair “carmageddon”.
” The transportation committee doesn’t want to be stuck in the endless blame game that led to this traffic mess. Rather we want to get the solutions right away so that we can quickly make our recommendations on how we can ease the burden of our people,” Sarmiento said.
He said that the government needs to be very quick in providing doable solutions to address the transportation crisis because he expects the traffic problem to get even worse with the onset of the Holiday season.
” We are now in the middle of a serious crisis and we must all work together to get out of this situation. I just hope that this time, our transport sector including our public utility operators can truly understand the gravity of our problem and take the actions necessary to get us out of this situation,” Sarmiento said.
