Egay Uy
IT may be recalled that the 2015 proposed budget of the Roads and Traffic Administration was severely cut by the city council. The provision for personnel salaries and wages was reduced a little, but the provisions for maintenance and other operating expenses and capital outlay got the brunt of the despotic act.
As introduced by yours truly, the managerials of the RTA, in preparing the proposed budgets for this year, did away with the usual imputation of a certain percentage to the previous year’s budget. Instead, there was a brainstorming on what the RTA wants to do with the traffic situation in the city.
The deliberations resulted in programs, projects and activities that would have dramatically helped alleviate the congestions in the streets and instill discipline among road users. This included the creation of a night patrol that would have helped maintain order even at night time.
The proposed funding for a permanent department head of the RTA was disapproved. Hence, the department will continue to be dependent on the directions that will be taken by whoever gets appointed by the city’s chief executive as overseer, killing continuity of programs that may have been commenced.
Manning the streets definitely requires additional manpower. Because of the lack of discipline of a good number of road users, the absence of traffic enforcers will embolden road users to wantonly violate traffic rules.
In Divisoria for instance, whenever the traffic enforcers assigned in the area take their break, double parking and other forms of illegal parking immediately take to Tirso Neri and RN Abejuela Streets. The absence of traffic enforcers brings out the kind of bad character that roads users in SUVs and other kinds of vehicles have.
Given this, part of the proposal was to add 90 traffic enforcers to man the streets. This was disapproved by the city council. Who then will man the streets and keep watch over road users whose bad habits have become the norm to many, the city councilors?
If they want to do that, they are most welcome.
(Egay Uy is a lawyer, city hall consultant, and the chairman of Task Force Hapsay Dalan.)
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