Cabanatuan City bans 5,000 trikes

CABANATUAN CITY, Nueva Ecija— The city government will ban at least 5,000 tricycles from outside Cabanatuan from plying their routes inside the city.

Mayor Julius Cesar Vergara recently signed Ordinance No. 006-2011 passed by the Sangguniang Panlungsod here to legalize and streamline the operation of the tricycle business.

The ordinance aims to limit tricycle operations to city residents in an effort to reduce the 17,000 tricycles in the city.

Vergara said he is concerned with the growing competition being offered against local operators and drivers of the tricycle units here by "outsider operators” who come outside Cabanatuan.

Under the local ordinance, only legitimate city residents can be granted franchise to operate a tricycle unit.

“The local measure rationalizes that the income derived from the operation of the tricycles should be enjoyed solely by the city residents,” the mayor said.

Based on the record from the city’s legalization and franchising office (CLFO), Cabanatuan has a total of 8,044 “For Hire” and 73 “For Private Use” tricycle units. There are also 57 registered tricycle drivers and operators associations (TODA) in the city.

A rough estimate made by CLFO shows a daily income of at least P531.25 with the “color coding” in force, for some 9,600 driver-operators.

CLFO said that by the end of the year, about 12,000 tricycle units are expected to ply the city’s major routes as part of the city’s public transport system.

Because of the number, Cabanatuan has remained the undisputed “The Tricycle Capital of the Philippines.”

Cabanatuan has few wide roads and there are only a few routes where jeepneys are allowed to pass through.

Vergara said the tricycle operators here have long engaged and invested a great part of their lifelong savings in buying a unit or two of tricycles.

He called the tricycle business as part of the city administration’s continuing livelihood project, and it being a longtime partner in the city’s progress and economic growth.