THE city’s Traffic Code direly needs a revisit, especially the provisions on parking and left turns.
The no-parking regulations appear to have outlived their purpose considering the dramatic growth in the number of motor vehicles that regularly ply city streets. Without even looking at the numbers, the vehicles of today practically tighten the city streets compared to those in the early 2000s.
Parking regulations also affect businesses in that a business in old buildings that have no parking areas cannot compete for all squares with one that has ample slots for customers’ vehicles.
Parking regulations will have to be revisited along with the one-way schemes and routes of public utility vehicles. Parking on side streets may be allowed if routes of PUVs are designed in a manner where dropping ang pick-up points for passengers are allowed only in certain stations without the PUVs necessarily entering busy portions of the city.
Double or triple rides will have to be accepted by passengers who have been used to door-to-door transport service. It’s a tall order but a growing metropolis surely calls for it. The current traffic czars can always pick up on voices aired by the public.
Now on left turns.
I have noticed that at Corrales Extension, vehicles coming from the north are allowed to turn left towards the Gaisano mall parking area. But turning left is prohibited from the parking area towards Corrales going south.
On the other hand, turning left is not allowed at Osmeña Street going towards the SM Downtown parking floors. And yet turning left is allowed from the SM parking areas going to Osmeña towards the south, the Cogon market area.
Spot the difference.
