DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 03 May) — An official from the City Administrator’s Office (CAO) said they have not received national government funds to greenlight the Davao City Public Transport Modernization Project (DCPTMP), a public mass transportation project that will replace jeepneys with buses.
A big part of the P73.4 billion bus project has not been downloaded to the city by the national government, Tristan Dwight Domingo, Davao Bus Project Manager Tristan Dwight Domingo said in a speech during a seminar-workshop organized by the local government unit and national consulting firms Transport and Traffic Planners (TTPI) Inc. and CEST Inc. on Monda
y.
Passengers line up to ride one of the buses in the early rollout of Davao City’s interim High Priority Bus System along Roxas Street in this photo taken in December 2021. MindaNews photo by YAS D. OCAMPO
“Our challenge now is mainly how fast and how supportive our national government is. The funding from the national government remains a challenge,” he said.
“As much as the city would like to have this (implemented), last year, we’re still very dependent on the national government,” he added.
The project will be funded from various sources, such as the Asian Development Bank and national and local budget.
The government signed a $1-billion loan (P54.89 billion) agreement with the ADB on July 1, 2023, to finance the implementation of the bus project.
“The thing is, we are working on what we have; the city, I think, under Mayor (Sebastian Duterte) is supportive, in fact, the mayor is already committed, I think in the next few years, around P2 billion of Davao City’s revenue will be spent on this money,” Domingo said.
“We’ve been talking about this project since 2018, hapit na mag-10 years (it’s almost 10 years), Dabawenyos are very frustrated na seeing press releases about the project, but the main challenge is the funding. We are even ready to build the terminals and its corresponding infrastructure,” the assistant city administrator added.
The Department of Transportation awarded notice of proceed contracts for the first three packages of the bus project to China International Water and Electric Corp. (CWE), and the fourth package to a joint venture between China Wu Yi Co. Ltd.-Fujian Construction and Engineering Group Co. Ltd. and Vicente T.
Lao Construction.
Once operational, the bus project will commence with 29 bus routes divided into four tiers: MetroDavao which will form the core services that connect all major commercial centers along five routes), DavaoInter which will run along with eight routes connecting the inner urban areas directly to the Davao Central Business District, DavaoFeeder which will run along nine routes linking smaller centers and areas of more dispersed populations to the MetroDavao services, and DavaoLocal which will provide a link between the outer rural areas of the city and the main transport system or the integrated terminals.
Under the bus system, around 1,000 bus stops will be put up at a distance of 500 meters in between stops along the 29 bus routes around the city. (Ian Carl Espinosa/MindaNews)
