GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews / 9 Dec) – The city government is considering adopting a zoning scheme for tricycles in a bid to address the worsening traffic congestion in major streets in the area.
Geraldine Zamora, coordinator of the city’s Motorized Tricycle Franchising Regulatory Board (MTFRB), said they are currently studying the viability of implementing the zoning scheme for various routes within the city’s 26 barangays.
She said such move was among the alternative solutions that were identified to help address the problems in the city’s traffic and transport management plan.
The plan will be presented by the local government to transport stakeholders in the scheduled city transportation summit in January.
“It’s one of the steps that we’ve considered to help ease traffic congestion in our major streets and roads,” she said.
Zamora, who also heads the City Permits and Licensing Division, said the proposed zoning scheme involves the creation of tricycle routes for the city’s barangays.
She said the barangays will be tapped to assist in the monitoring and regulation of tricycle operations, especially those plying specific routes in their areas.
Along with the implementation of the proposed zoning scheme, she said they will strictly enforce the ban for tricycles from entering or passing portions of the national highway.
Zamora acknowledged that the zoning scheme will initially cause inconvenience to residents who are used to the current unregulated routes.
“But if this will eventually solve our traffic problem then why not adopt it,” she said.
City officials earlier estimated that around 8,000 tricycles have been operating on a daily basis in various routes here.
But such figure was two-folds more than the actual number of tricycle franchises that had been issued by the MTFRB.
