About Cebu: The Ugly Truth About Flyovers: Why Cebu Stays Beautiful Without Flyovers?

Flyovers are not just ugly. Building these can be an indication that a city is poorly planned, or worse, not planned at all.

In simple analogy, building a flyover to address congestion is a band aid solution. It's an afterthought.

It is an obvious indication that the city has no working plan at all. It is a reactive solution.

Cebu City does not need more flyovers. Cebu City needs proactive solutions that will work in the long term. Cebu needs sustainable solutions that will not only solve traffic congestion in intersections, but will also make the lives of the people more convenient.

What Cebuanos need is a Master Plan for a transportation system that will help make everyone productive and will make this city more liveable, safe and environmentally sound.

The heated debate over having 2 flyovers built in Cebu City is still on-going among local and national stakeholders, and a request to postpone the construction of the flyovers has reached the Palace.

If I were P'Noy, I will also agree with stopping the construction of these flyovers.

Here are the top 3, among many, reasons why Cebu should stop building flyovers:

The best cities of the world are not building flyovers. They are making Master Plans that allow people to become productive amidst the urbanization of their cities while still enjoying the liveable qualities in working and sustainable cities. Photo: Melbourne at night. It is one of the most liveable cities of the world. Credits: www.dreamstime.com

1) Flyovers are not just costly, these are ugly. In a sound cost-benefit analysis, flyovers will turn out to be overpriced for the benefits that these shall yield, if any, in the long run. Look at Metro Manila now, and urban planners will agree that the flyovers have made the city a living example of many "afterthought" remedies. Flyovers are cures to bad urban planning that never work, and have remained to be quick, but ugly, remedy to poor decisions in road networking and planning.

2) Flyovers do not work. Instead, a city that starts building flyovers, will keep building flyovers in clogged intersections, unless the root of the problem will be addressed. In the end, Cebu City will become a city of flyovers. If you are still convinced or think that it works somehow, well, look at the flyover that was built at the intersection near Parklane Hotel and Cebu Business Park (Ayala Center, cebu). Until now, that intersection remains busy as hell. That’s just one, among the many examples of flyovers that remain to be temporary cures to the root causes of congestion. Poorly planned cities in other parts of the world are also having problems caused by building flyovers.

3) Flyovers do not solve the real cause of congestion. Building a single one to solve a congestion problem is an indication that the existing transportation system is not working. Decision makers need to take a look at the bigger picture and see that what Cebu City really needs is a Masterplan (as it never had one in the past. Such a shame for a highly urbanized city). Any liveable city across the globe has a working Master Plan. These cities have working Mass Transportation System that allows people to get from point A to point B within a short time. Cebu City is too small to have a bad traffic congestion problem in the first place. Relative to its size, it should never have such only if the transportation system works.

It is sad to see that Cebu City is growing like an organism that has no definite shape at all. In about 10 to 50 years from now, it is like a living thing which no one knows exactly how it gets shaped into. Try using Google Earth, and compare Cebu City's footprint to the top cities of the world that are well planned and are really the most liveable places. I'm sure you will wish Cebu should have been planned better, if there was any plan at all.

What Cebu City really needs is a Master Plan that:

1)      respects the environment – should have pocket parks and bike lanes, pavements that allow rainwater to seep through;

2)      allows people to live in a City with walkable streets – shaded walks and canopies, car-free zones;

3)      has child-friendly landscapes – our existing motorized streets are surely not kid-friendly. Child-friendly cities are most liveable and are very appropriate for all ages;

4)      encourages low carbon emissions – thus, should have mass transportation systems to encourage people to leave their cars at home or in nodes and commute more due to the benefits from reduced travel time and convenience with a mass transport; and

the list could go on…and to me, such ideals are not ambitious. These solutions are more than practical and sound, for those who really understand what sustainable development means. If it worked in other cities, why can’t it work for Cebu City that’s really relatively small in scale and relatively easy to manage.

Thoughts create things. I love to live in a city that works. I would love to live in the new Cebu City that really works.

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About the author:
A professional B2B web content provider since 2008.
Finished BS Architecture from the University of the Philippines, Diliman.
Graduated Master of Science in Urban Environmental Management from the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand.

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