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Bizman: Service strips not feasible

Friday, December 17, 2010

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — Businessman Rene Romero said the plan to build service strips in order to save trees along the MacArthur Highway is not feasible.

Romero issued the statement after Architect Edgar Salas, an architecture professor at Holy Angel University (HAU), bared a road perspective which is expected to save full-grown acacia trees along the highway.

Romero said the space between the trees and the private lots where the service strips will be constructed is too narrow.

Motorists and passengers will even be exposed to traffic hazards if the service strips are provided and the trees are not removed from the national highway, he said.

Salas earlier said that trees lined up along the lateral portions of the national highway will be spared from the road widening program of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) if service strips or service roads are constructed.

Salas said the service strips or the space between the trees and the private lots along the national road may serve as loading and unloading areas of public utility vehicles.

But the private individuals who own the lots along the road may also share portions of their properties to expand the strip into two lanes, Salas said.

The school professor even cited one of Architect Thomas Fisher’s 14 environmental design principles that the ecological diversity should not be sacrificed by infrastructure development.

“Instead of reducing it, you improve it,” Salas said.

He said that trees should be considered at all times when constructing buildings or roads.

Salas also stressed that the city will be exposed to flooding if the trees were removed from the highway, saying full-grown acacias, commonly known as rain trees, absorb big volumes of floodwaters during the rainy season.

Aside from this, Salas also mentioned the hazard to people crossing the wide streets if the trees were cut.

In Barangay Sindalan, in the City of San Fernando, where the trees were cut and the road was expanded, people have to cross about six lanes, or 30 meters, to get to the other side of the highway, he said.

The trees form a natural canopy that protects commuters and motorists from ultraviolet rays aside from cleaning the air, Salas added.

On the road widening, Romero said that investors would come in if the province has wide and traffic-free roads.

“It is an igniter for progress,” he said.

The businessmen claimed trees should be planted in proper places and not on the shoulder of the road.

He added that he has been joining civic organizations for tree planting activities for several years now.

Romero said that different varieties of fruit-bearing and forest trees surround his residence here. (Reynaldo G. Navales)

Source: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/pampanga/local-news/bizman-service-strips-not-feasible

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