By Joseph Almer Pedrajas
The traffic department of the Muntinlupa City government disclosed that there is no proper coordination between them and the contractors of the Skyway Extension Project on the latter’s road closures, leading to traffic gridlock in certain areas of the city.
"Wala silang (They have no) letter or advisory or any document that will inform us that they will do this, they will do that," Muntinlupa Traffic Management Bureau (MTMB) chief Danidon Nolasco told reporters on Wednesday afternoon.
Nolasco said that local government employees only used to rely on the Twitter posts of Skyway management about upcoming road closures.
"Meron silang advisory through Twitter. Eh ang point natin kasi, not all have an access to Twitter. So ang sinasabi natin, baka pwede pang ieexhaust ang ibang means," he added.
(They post advisories on Twitter, but not everyone has access to that. We’re saying they can probably exhaust other means .)
On Dec. 9, commuters and motorists suffered a gridlock when Skyway operators and contractors closed the Alabang-Zapote ramp.
They also closed the temporary toll plaza adjacent to Amkor-Anam on East Service Road in Muntinlupa on Dec. 7, prompting motorists to use the Sucat toll plaza instead of entering the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX).
This lack of coordination between the Muntinlupa traffic department and the Skyway contractors led the local government to require the latter during their Dec. 10 meeting "to inform ahead of time so they could prepare."
Nolasco added that they also asked the contractors to deploy additional Skyway traffic enforcers within a one-kilometer radius of the site to help man the traffic.
When asked if they have an idea of the duration of the road closure, Nolasco said, "Wala eh. Open-ended yung kanilang advisory. Walang sinabi kung hanggang kailan. Lahat naka-hang.”
(None. Their advisory is open-ended. They didn’t say until when. Everything’s left hanging.)