There are a lot of reasons to love Pasig City, and here’s another one to add to the list: Mayor Vico Sotto announced a bike-oriented path for the city’s transport future on June 3, World Bicycle Day. This includes bike lanes, road-safety measures, more bike racks, loans for workers to buy their own non-motorized vehicles, and an information campaign to promote this mode of transport.
Check out Pasig City’s proposed map for a ‘High Priority Bicycle Corridor’:
Essentially, it will be lanes where bikers can be assured safety on congested and usually-dangerous roads. Once the promised bike lanes are in place, you can pretty much bike all the way from Barangay Manggahan on the other side of Marikina River to Pasig City Hall.
Bikes have also proven to be very useful for frontliners during the COVID-19 quarantine. With transport options limited, more commuters are looking toward using bikes—but not all can afford their own set of wheels. Pasig City is looking to institutionalize transportation loans for employees to address this need. And as the number of bikes is set to grow, the local government will be setting up more racks to serve as bicycle parking. “At [P10,000 to P20,000] per rack, this is [a hundred times] cheaper per use than the cost and maintenance of a parking lot,” said the mayor.
“Sa ordinaryong panahon, wala pang 30% ng tao ang bumabiyahe gamit ang private cars, ngunit mahigit 80% ng kalsada ang sakop nila,” noted Sotto in his Facebook post. “Ngayon ang #tamangpanahon para isulong ang mga reporma sa ating sistema ng transportasyon sa Kalakhang Maynila.”
For more of our stories on the ongoing crisis, click here. For the latest news and updates on COVID-19, check out reportr.world/covid-19.
NOTE: This article first appeared on reportr.world. Minor edits have been made.
