SRP Update: South Road Properties Bike Lane

I went to Talisay City last week via the South Road Properties, and I was quite surprised to find that (what appears to be) a dedicated bike lane is now being built. This is, of course, a very welcome development. However, I must say that this just came out of nowhere. I never heard about this in the local news and it never showed up on my feed. So this was truly a pleasant surprise.

By the way, just to be clear, I’m not sure if it is indeed a bike lane. So, since things haven’t been confirmed yet, I’m going to refer to this project as ‘bike lane’. Let’s begin!

South Road Properties Bike Lane

The sidewalk (right side when facing Talisay City) at the SRP is now being cleared. Originally, only a small portion of the sidewalk is useable. After the clearing operation, however, we can now see that it is actually wide.

Bikers going to Talisay City usually use this small sidewalk to stay away from the speeding bigger vehicles on the main road.

Full-blown work on the project can be seen across the Il Corso Lifestyle Mall. in this area, concreting work can now be observed.

A Pedestrian Lane, Too?

I noticed that the project actually has two components. The first one (smaller) is grey concrete and the second one (a lot wider) has the distinct red coloring used in most Cebu sidewalks.

The grids are drawn on to give the appearance of neatly-placed red bricks. This method has also been used in a lot of Cebu sidewalks.

This is what the completed work looks like. It actually looks pretty good!

I’m not exactly sure which one is the pedestrian lane and which one is the bike lane. As a lot of Cebu sidewalks are usually red (with the brick pattern), we can say that it is the wider one. However, it wouldn’t make sense if the bike lane is actually smaller than the pedestrian lane as bikes are obviously wider.

Although the project could still take months, it’s great to note that several meters are now done and (I think) ready to use.

I also noticed that they are building what appears to be a waiting shed. As it is placed in between the two lanes (and facing the bigger one), there is now a big chance that the bigger lane is actually for pedestrian use.

Here is a view of the project as it slowly moves towards the Talisay bridge.

If you look closely, the smaller lane CAN fit two bikes at a time. However, it isn’t too ideal as the gap between the two bikes would be very small. My guess is that it is going to be a one-way lane and all bikers headed towards Cebu City must use the bike lane on the other side of the street. Additionally, there is a big chance that the wider pedestrian lane will have two-way foot traffic.