In a crackdown against colorum tricycle units, Quezon City’s traffic czar, Ariel Inton, wants the cooperation of Mayors Vico Sotto of Pasig City and Oscar Malapitan of Caloocan City to fix the traffic woes at the respective border areas of Libis and Ugong Norte and Camarin and Novaliches.
Inton said Wednesday he wants to “immediately” sit down with Sotto and Malapitan to address various administrative and traffic violations being committed by the tricycle operators and drivers’ associations in the boundaries of Caloocan and Quezon City, and Pasig and QC.
In an interview, Inton cited the big challenge the Quezon City government is facing in implementing its traffic rules and regulations on tricycles because of territorial issues with Pasig and Caloocan.
“We will go after [and tow] unregistered units and apprehend overcharging drivers,” he told Manila Standard. “There are units crossing from one city to another city, such as ours and Pasig.”
Meanwhile, District 1 Councilor Bernard Herrera wants more professionals in Quezon City.
In an interview, Herrera said he is studying a possibility of extending educational assistance for poor but deserving students who would wish to take up law, medicine, architecture or engineering.
“We need more lawyers and doctors,” he said, noting that while Quezon City has already produced many college graduates, financial constraints have prevented them from enrolling in graduate studies.
“Not all college graduates come from well-to-do families. Some of them are poor who could not afford to pursue a master’s degree or doctor’s degree. If we want to see our city to further improve, we must produce more professionals,” Herrera noted.
The city government, through the newly created Tricycle Regulatory Division of the Task Force for Transport and Traffic Management, also plans to fix street terminals for trikes, remove those located on street corners, and designate devoted loading and loading areas, Inton said.
He assured there would be no displacement to affect tricycle passengers.
“I will ask the (37-member) city council to pass an ordinance to have dedicated loading and unloading stations and terminals away from the Mabuhay Lanes and other primary lanes,” said Inton, a former three-term councilor himself.
Mayor Joy Belmonte designated Inton, also a former Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board member and founding president of the Lawyers for Commuters Safety and Protection as the “action man” of the traffic task force.
Inton likewise warned commercial establishments not to use the sidewalks and roads as their workplaces for their business interests, “or I will be forced to confiscate their trades and dismantle their illegal structures if they would ignore us.”
Age is not issue in the provision to help a deserving candidate seek a higher education, it added.
“If we cannot totally provide their needs, we could at least offer assistance,” the councilor said. (RIO)