Transport advocacy group The Passenger Forum today called on the Department of Transportation and the Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board to update the public regarding the implementation of their action plan to solve commuter woes in the EDSA Bus Carousel.
According to TPF Convener Primo Morillo, “Three weeks have already passed since the DOTR and the LTFRB revealed their action plan for the EDSA Busway. We want to know if there is any progress as the situation of EDSA Carousel passengers has hardly improved.”
In mid-July, the transport department announced their plans to solve the EDSA Busway situation. Among the action points are the following:
- Deployment of 440 buses instead of the usual 200 units in the busway
- Addressing the huge backlog in payment to operators and streamline the payment process
- Opening a terminal at the North end of the busway in Monumento similar to the PITX in the South
DOTR and LTFRB officials came up with the said action plan after they accepted the “rush hour challenge” of The Passenger Forum and they were able to see the situation of commuters along EDSA.
Morillo said, “We told them before that TPF welcomes their acceptance of our rush hour challenge and we even praised their action plan afterwards. We believe in the action plan but since we are not seeing any relevant change, we hope they will divulge the progress or if there are any hurdles in the implementation part.”
“We reminded them before that we will be watching. We will not allow them to just utter empty promises without being held into account,” he added.
