BACOLOD City – The Department of Public Works and Highways was urged to build a new diversion road linking Barangay Taloc, Bago City, Negros Occidental to the Bacolod Economic Highway.
Once constructed, the diversion road would decongest the heavy traffic along Araneta Street from Barangay Sum-ag to CEGASCO in Barangay Pahanocoy, according to the Sangguniang Panlungsod.
“Solely vested with the mandate to be the state’s engineering and construction arm, the DPWH can construct said road link to divert hundreds of heavy vehicles coming from far south of Negros Occidental [to] an ideal location along the highway within the boundary of Barangay Taloc and Barangay Sum-ag,” the councilor said in a resolution.
Traffic buildup in these areas affects areas within the Barangay Sum-ag proper all the way beyond the CEGASCO corner toward the downtown area, stated the resolution authored by Councilor Wilson Gamboa Jr.
Gamboa believed that infrastructures that solve traffic buildup and reduce congestion help “increase productivity [through the] reduction of delays, unreliability of travel time, fuel, vehicle operating cost, traffic-related stresses, and collisions.”
The Bacolod Economic Highway meantime is a 21.8-kilometer multiyear project that the DPWH will carry out from 2017 to 2021 under the “Build, Build, Build” program of the Duterte administration.
It will cut through barangays Sum-ag, Cabug, Felisa, Handumanan, Mansilingan, Estefania, Granada, Mandalagan, and Bata./PN
