With PBBM witnessing…

RDC-7 seeks DOTr fund for

FS on Metro Tagb monorail

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol Feb 22 (PIA)—With no less than President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., attending the meeting with key members of the Regional Development Council in Region 7, the council led by Bohol Governor Erico Aristotle Aumentado has formally presented for presidential push, the funding for the feasibility study of the ambitious Metro-Tagbilaran monorail project.

A monorail is an urban mass transport train with a single track elevated rail supported by beams that allow train wagons to glide through to established stations while moving commuters.

First presented to the RDC via the Development Administration Committee led by Boholano sectoral representative Argeo Melisimo, the monorail project is a sudden jump which Boholanos see as a better alternative project than the Panglao Airport to Tagbilaran City Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).

It may be recalled that the Department of Transportation (DOTr) has in its second tier of projects for the Central Visayas and its airports, the BRT.

BRT is a high quality bus transport which promises to provide a faster and reliable transportation system that uses dedicated lanes, bus-only routes, priorities in traffic snags, systematized fare collection system, and related infrastructure that may include elevated highways and platforms, to be assure of rapid commutes.

For Melisimo, who is familiar with the worsening traffic in the city and its outlaying towns, putting in the BRT could significantly contribute to the worsening traffic in metro Tagbilaran City areas, not to mention the pollution that it can add to the already decaying air quality over the metropolitan areas.

The monorail, owing to its dedicated rails offer reliable mass transport, environment friendly and an easy infrastructure set-up with cheaper operational costs.

Aumentado said the RDC DAC chairman proposed for the monorail system that runs from Alburquerque to Tagbilaran via Baclayon, Panglao to Tagbilaran via Dauis, and Maribojoc to Tagbilaran via Cortes. Another line is proposed for Corella to Tagbilaran.

As the RDC DAC has asked the DOTr to reconsider its tier 2 project and fund instead the feasibility study of the monorail system, this time it was the RDC 7 time to present to the president the monorail as among Central Visayas’ priority projects.

During the meeting, with the president in attendance, the RDC 7 resolved to request the DOTr to set aside the Panglao Airport-Tagbilaran BRT and instead fund the feasibility study of the monorail.

With the proposal for the feasibility study for the metro-Tagbilaran monorail, it also sought for the feasibility of other mass transport projects in the urban centers of Cebu, Bohol and Negros Oriental. (PIABohol)

FOR PRESIDENTIAL ADOPTION. RDC 7, with President Ferdinand Marcos witnessing, pushed for the government funding on the feasibility studies of the MetroTagbilaran monorail and other mass transport systems in the urban centers in the Visayas. (PIABohol)