• CHERYL G. CRUZ
The Sangguniang Panlungsod has passed on third and final reading a proposed ordinance strengthening and restructuring the Bacolod Traffic Authority Office (BTAO) into the Bacolod Traffic and Transport Management Department (BTTMD).
The BTTMD ordinance, authored by Councilor Al Victor Espino, calls for the creation of regular plantilla positions in the department that will be under the Office of the City Mayor.
The BTTMD shall have an enforcement regulatory division, an engineering division, and planning and education division, with corresponding personnel all under a traffic operations officer, with a city department head II at the helm.
“Amid the clamor for a more seamless and robust traffic management operations in the city, there is a need to strengthen and restructure the existing BTAO, making it into a department to make it more responsive and efficient in managing the traffic and transport situation in Bacolod,” Espino, chairperson of the SP Committee on Transport and Traffic, said in the ordinance.
He said there are several factors contributing to the traffic problems in Bacolod, such as the continued increase in the number of vehicles and poor road infrastructure network, adding that the existing capacity of BTAO is restricted.
Urban development in the city is continuously and rapidly increasing, resulting in traffic congestion, hence the need for a “well-developed and efficient city traffic and transport management (that) shall bring comfort and convenience to the general public and bring safety and security to the constituents,” Espino stressed. | CGC
