More senators are calling on the government for the establishment of bicycle lanes and opening up more bike parking spaces as biking would most likely become a primary mode of transportation while the country is still under community quarantine.
Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said it is not enough to establish bike lanes in our roads, he wants government buildings and malls to provide secure and free parking spaces for bicycles.
“Malaking kaswapangan na kung pati bisikleta sisingilin mo pa. Napakaliit na espasyo lang mao-okupa. Besides, cars can cross-subsidize the expenses in maintaining mall parking lots,” he said.
He also asked government buildings including public schools, colleges, hospitals, and markets to put up bike racks. Recto is also encouraging private schools and houses of worship to put up parking spaces for bikes.
Senator Pia Cayetano is supporting an earlier proposal for government to build a “loop” of bikeway systems and emergency pathways linking roads along several hospitals in Metro Manila that would medical frontliners can use.
Four hospitals in the City Manila namely: the Manila Doctors Hospital and Manila Medical Center, both along United Nations Avenue, the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) along Taft Avenue and the Ospital ng Maynila Medical Center along Quirino Avenue, would benefit from the six-kilometer pathway.
“We want to be able to protect all of our frontliners; even the hospital staff exposed to admin work and cleaning services, the security personnel, the barangays workers, and so on. We need to keep finding ways to keep them all safe, which also means keeping our roads safe for them to travel on,” Cayetano said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Senator Francis Tolentino filed a resolution Friday urging the Department of Public Works and Highways to coordinate with the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) to designate and improve bicycle lanes in Metro Manila.
Tolentino is asking the MMDA to convert public utility vehicles (PUV) and bus lanes in Metro Manila to bike lanes since these are currently unused due to the suspension of public transportation. (Rommel F. Lopez)