New coastal road opens next week

HE government is scheduled to open the new coastal road from Gusa to the Agora area next week, city hall’s information office announced yesterday.

Local officials expect the new four-lane road to significantly decongest the Gusa-Agora section of CM Recto Avenue where vehicular traffic jams have become a daily occurrence.

The project is part of a bigger coastal road project that stretches from Gusa to Barangay Igpit in Opol town, Misamis Oriental.

Maricel Rivera, city hall spokesperson, said the coastal road, a project of the Department of Public Works and Highways, is scheduled to be opened to the public on Friday, Nov. 10.

Rivera said clearing operations would start on Tuesday.

She said drivers of trucks and buses would be asked to take the new road and its use by public jeepney drivers would be optional.

Drivers of private vehicles may take the coastal road, Rivera said.

City hall has appealed for cooperation even as it asked citizens to remove any obstruction on the new road.

“Gipahinumduman ang tanang hingtungdan, hilabina kadtong nakababag sa dalan sama sa mga butang ug structures sa pagtangtang aron hapsay ang pag-agi sa mga sakyanan,” reads part of Rivera’s statement.

Lawyer Jose Edgardo Uy, chairman of city hall’s Task Force Hapsay Dalan, said he was hopeful that the new road would make the vehicular traffic flow on CM Recto Avenue from Gusa to Agora and beyond would be lighter because trucks and buses would be required to pass through it.

But Uy said a section of the Agora area from Valenzuela road to the coastal road would likely “have heavier traffic such that obstructions around Agora would have to be cleared, parking strictly regulated and trisikad strictly prohibited from entering that area.”

Uy said travel time from Gusa to Agora, vice versa, would be faster.

He said the Roads and Traffic Administration would come up with a traffic scheme ahead of the new road opening.

Uy said the DPWH asked Mayor Oscar Moreno for assistance in clearing the Agora area, and so an inter-agency committee was immediately formed ahead of the Nov. 10 opening of the new road.

The committee is composed of representatives of the DPWH, RTA, City Social Welfare Department, Office of the Building Official, police, Philippine Ports Authority, Bureau of Fire Protection,  City Housing and Urban Development Department, City Information Office and barangay chairmen Marlo Tabac of Gusa and Omar Labuntog of Lapasan.

Uy also said the width of the island on Valenzuela road would be reduced from four meters to about a meter so as to widen the road.

He said residents along Valenzuela and Agora whose structures are obstructing the road and sidewalk would be relocated.

The affected residents would be gathered this afternoon at the Lapasan barangay hall to inform them of the impending clearing operations and their possible relocation, said Uy.

The RTA, he said, would field more personnel to the “Galaxy” area in Gusa because the traffic lights there are still not functioning.

Uy said pedestrian lanes would be marked by DPWH along the coastal road especially in densely populated areas. (herbie gomez)