There are a lot of reasons to love Pasig City (and no, we're not just talking about the incredibly-agreeable mayor) but here is another one to add to the list. Vico Sotto announced a bike-oriented path for Pasig City's transport future right on June 3, World Bicycle Day. This includes bike lanes, road safety measures, more bike racks to leave your two-wheeled ride in safely, loans for workers to buy their own non-motorized vehicles, and an information campaign to promote this mode of transport.
Check out Pasig City's proposed map for a "High Priority Bicycle Corridor." Essentially, it will be lanes where bikers can be assured safety along congested and usually-dangerous roads. Once the promised bike lanes are in place, you can pretty much bike all the way from Barangay Manggahan on the other side of Marikina River to Pasig City Hall.
Bikes have also proven to be very useful for frontliners during the COVID-19 quarantine. With transport options limited, more and more folks are looking towards using bikes—but not all can afford their own set of wheels. Pasig City is looking to institutionalize transportation loans for employees to address this need. And as the number of bikes is set to grow, local government will be setting up more racks for people to park. "At [P10 to P20 thousand] per rack, this is [a hundred times] cheaper per use than the cost and maintenance of a parking lot," added the mayor.
"Sa ordinaryong panahon, wala pang 30% ng tao ang bumabiyahe gamit ang private cars, ngunit mahigit 80% ng kalsada ang sakop nila," noted Sotto in his Facebook post. "Ngayon ang #TAMANGPANAHON para isulong ang mga reporma sa ating sistema ng transportasyon sa Kalakhang Maynila."
Main image from Pasig Transport Facebook page
This story originally appeared on Reportr.World. Minor edits have been made by the SPOT.ph editors.