Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto has urged the public to consider biking as an alternative mode of transportation as part of the “new normal” in commuting.
With Metro Manila now under general community quarantine (GCQ), some means of public transport such as trains, select buses, taxis, and tricycles were allowed to resume operations.
But these would still not be enough to ferry scores of daily commuters to their destinations for such mobility options could only operate at 50 percent capacity.
“We are encouraging everyone to bike,” Sotto said in a Facebook live on Sunday afternoon.
“We’re promoting bicycle riding and other alternative forms of transportation dahil alam po natin kung gaano ka-traffic dito sa Pasig,” he added.
Public mass transport in Metro Manila was put to a halt for almost three months after President Duterte placed Luzon under enhanced community quarantine.
Because of this, the public were either forced to walk for several kilometers just to reach their destinations or use other modes of transport such as bicycles.
According to Sotto, the quarantine has proven that bike riding is possible here in the country despite the hot weather.
In the early days of the Luzon lockdown, the Pasig City government declared biking as an essential form of transportation.
With this, the local government has placed traffic cones and barriers along the outermost lane of select streets in the city to serve as a bike lane for cyclists to use.
During the lockdown, Pasig City has also provided frontliners with bicycles they could use to get to their workplaces.
“Sana hanggang matapos yung quarantine ipagpatuloy nila ‘yung habit ng pag bike to and from work,” Sotto said.
“Kasama na ‘to sa new normal natin, he added. (Jhon Casinas)
