Transport co-op wants BRT to push through

A LOCAL transport cooperative has urged President Rodrigo R. Duterte to intervene in what it called a “crisis situation” amid the strong opposition to the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project in Cebu City. The Cebu Integrated Transport Service Multi-Purpose Cooperative, through its Chairman and General Manager Ryan Benjamin Yu, asked Mr. Duterte to give approval for the project to proceed. The Office of the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas (OPAV) Michael Lloyd L. Dino and Transportation Secretary Arthur P. Tugade have recommended to the National Economic and Development Authority-Investment Coordination Committee to cancel the BRT. The BRT is a 23-kilometer corridor transport system with around 33 bus stations and 176 buses in operation. “It is our belief that the objections of the OPAV, which may or may not be valid, are solvable in the course of project implementation and should not be the basis of cancelling the project,” Mr. Yu said in a letter addressed to Mr. Duterte. He added that the BRT will benefit the public utility vehicle industry, residents, workers and tourists in Cebu. — The Freeman