(This is the draft of my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu on April 30)
WHILE I was inconvenienced, too, by the first Road Revolution, having to walk a kilometer while carrying a heavy box (while looking for an ATM, too), I don�t think that the Road Rev is a bad thing.
Sure, there were many hiccups in the first road rev, but if folks give up after the first road bump�or 10th�we wouldn�t have new oval at the Cebu City Sports Center and if they wave the white flag now, perhaps they are really not that serious in their goals.
The demand for a bicycle lane in the city is genuine and I happen to agree with it. Just because it seems difficult and impossible doesn�t mean it is difficult and impossible.
It doesn�t even necessarily involve building new roads or lanes.
I know a few folks behind the Road Revolution movement, including Vince Cinches, who�s been fighting for causes like this while Bobby Nalzaro was banging away drums to highlight a point. Like Bobby, I think Vince�s 350.org, is using the Road Rev movement to forward their cause.
But unlike Bobby, I don�t think that�s necessarily bad and I don�t think Vince is using the biking community to get funds abroad. I�ve known Vince since our student activism days at the University of San Carlos and that�s what activism is all about, to align yourselves with groups that share your cause.
While posting a question about which lane bikers should use�inner or outer�in this bike-lane city, I got into a brief, but interesting, discussion with Eric Nacorda, a footballer who is also an architect and knows a thing or two about urban planning.
Eric, who is old enough to remember that blue-collared workers in the Mepz used to bike their way to work in the 80s, said that perhaps the opposition to the bike-advocacy group is the lack of detailed plan on how they would go about the bike lanes.
Eric said, �If people say something is wrong, they should do so because they have a detailed idea that there is something better, an option that is better than the one being currently implemented....that�s the thing lacking in the bike advocacy right now...some groups insist that key traffic corridors should have bike-lanes 24/7, yet they don�t proposed how to remove two lanes from the six-lane South Expressway without disrupting the flow of traffic.�
Though I�m not sure if the bike advocacy doesn�t have a better option in mind, I don�t think I�ve heard one. And a simple suggestion by Eric that�s doable and doesn�t need any new lanes is to identify certain areas in Cebu as bike lanes, but, the difference is, these won�t be bike lanes 24/7 but will be for certain times of a particular day, when most vehicular traffic are out.
Say, for starters, two lanes in Osmena Boulevard at 6 to 8 a.m. on Sundays? Surely, that won�t disrupt everybody�s Sunday morning coffee with their BFFs? Another thing, aside from bike lanes, how about insisting malls, offices put up shower rooms (tax-deductible) so biking to get to your appointments could be now an option since you can freshen up. One of these days, when I finally afford one, I�m planning to bike my way around the city, too.
I think we can compare the bike lane advocacy to the group that pushed for the renovation of the track oval. They were but a handful when they had their first meeting in 2008, but they never gave up. Now, four years later, we have a new track oval.
The bike lane advocacy is a commendable one, and we shouldn�t readily dismiss them because we hate one guy behind the movement. And this is one movement where the blue-collar workers, those who drive their rickety bikes to work or to deliver bills and newspapers, can benefit.
Sure, some would be inconvenienced, but if we want a life with no inconveniences�.
Sure, there were many hiccups in the first road rev, but if folks give up after the first road bump�or 10th�we wouldn�t have new oval at the Cebu City Sports Center and if they wave the white flag now, perhaps they are really not that serious in their goals.
The demand for a bicycle lane in the city is genuine and I happen to agree with it. Just because it seems difficult and impossible doesn�t mean it is difficult and impossible.
It doesn�t even necessarily involve building new roads or lanes.
I know a few folks behind the Road Revolution movement, including Vince Cinches, who�s been fighting for causes like this while Bobby Nalzaro was banging away drums to highlight a point. Like Bobby, I think Vince�s 350.org, is using the Road Rev movement to forward their cause.
But unlike Bobby, I don�t think that�s necessarily bad and I don�t think Vince is using the biking community to get funds abroad. I�ve known Vince since our student activism days at the University of San Carlos and that�s what activism is all about, to align yourselves with groups that share your cause.
While posting a question about which lane bikers should use�inner or outer�in this bike-lane city, I got into a brief, but interesting, discussion with Eric Nacorda, a footballer who is also an architect and knows a thing or two about urban planning.
Eric, who is old enough to remember that blue-collared workers in the Mepz used to bike their way to work in the 80s, said that perhaps the opposition to the bike-advocacy group is the lack of detailed plan on how they would go about the bike lanes.
Eric said, �If people say something is wrong, they should do so because they have a detailed idea that there is something better, an option that is better than the one being currently implemented....that�s the thing lacking in the bike advocacy right now...some groups insist that key traffic corridors should have bike-lanes 24/7, yet they don�t proposed how to remove two lanes from the six-lane South Expressway without disrupting the flow of traffic.�
Though I�m not sure if the bike advocacy doesn�t have a better option in mind, I don�t think I�ve heard one. And a simple suggestion by Eric that�s doable and doesn�t need any new lanes is to identify certain areas in Cebu as bike lanes, but, the difference is, these won�t be bike lanes 24/7 but will be for certain times of a particular day, when most vehicular traffic are out.
Say, for starters, two lanes in Osmena Boulevard at 6 to 8 a.m. on Sundays? Surely, that won�t disrupt everybody�s Sunday morning coffee with their BFFs? Another thing, aside from bike lanes, how about insisting malls, offices put up shower rooms (tax-deductible) so biking to get to your appointments could be now an option since you can freshen up. One of these days, when I finally afford one, I�m planning to bike my way around the city, too.
I think we can compare the bike lane advocacy to the group that pushed for the renovation of the track oval. They were but a handful when they had their first meeting in 2008, but they never gave up. Now, four years later, we have a new track oval.
The bike lane advocacy is a commendable one, and we shouldn�t readily dismiss them because we hate one guy behind the movement. And this is one movement where the blue-collar workers, those who drive their rickety bikes to work or to deliver bills and newspapers, can benefit.
Sure, some would be inconvenienced, but if we want a life with no inconveniences�.
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