TIMED WITH the Giant Lantern Festival last Dec. 13 was the opening of the interregional terminal hub at Robinsons Starmills.
Although already the third in the country – after Robinsons Novaliches and Robinsons Place Dumaguete – the Robinsons Starmills hub is in a league all its own as it will interconnect Regions 1, 2, 3 and CAR with NCR and even Region 4 and 5.
It will also host a shuttle service to and from the Clark International Airport for seamless air travel for the areas it serves.
In the offing is a lounge for CIA commuters, and free parking “in a well-lit and guarded lot so travellers can leave their vehicles and take the shuttle to the airport.”
Some convenient – and safe – parking-and-flying there. Robinsons Starmills with a designated 1,760-square meter lot for the hub, makes an ideal location, indeed, being the virtual nexus of the Olongapo-Gapan Road, aka Jose Abad Santos Avenue (JASA)
And the North Luzon Expressway (near the San Fernando Exit), onto the Subic- Clark-Tarlac Expressway and the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway.
Hence the inter-connectivity of the four regions north of Manila. With operating hours of 6a.m.—9p.m. daily, the terminal hub will have four ticket booths, a convenience store, a hobby shop, an appliance store, three ATM machines, and 12 food and services kiosks.
Not to mention the regular shops and stalls in the mall. At Friday’s official opening, City of San Fernando Mayor Edwin Santiago was profuse with thanks to Robinsons Starmills and representatives of bus lines – notably Genesis, Victory Liner, Bataan Transit, First North Luzon, and Baliwag Transit – for the unified terminal that truly makes his city the gateway to North Luzon and the heart of Central Luzon.
In this respect, Santiago did one over his predecessor and mentor 3rd District Rep. Oscar S. Rodriguez who, during his mayorship, established the City Central Terminal at the western part of the capital along JASA where all buses going through the city were enjoined to hub.
A defiant Victory Liner maintained its own terminal near the junction of JASA and the MacArthur Highway in Barangay DoloresWhen mayoral push turned to judicial shove though, Victory Liner opted to route its buses to Robinsons Starmills to load and unload passengers.
Victory Liner’s move to the Gokongweiowned mall was soon followed by other bus lines with SM City Pampanga as terminus. And the City Central Terminal of Rodriguez has since fallen to disuse. Where Rodriguez obviously failed, Santiago seemingly excelled.
So all’s well ending well with the inter-regional terminal hub at Robinsons Starmills now? What is pure perfection on paper though is starting to get rip apart in actual application.
Already a choke point, the main ingress of vehicles to SM City Pampanga from JASA was further gridlocked when its opposite end on the Robinsons Starmills side was made the direct egress of buses from the terminal hub.
With the Christmas shopping rush peaking, traffic at various times of day and night virtually stands still there. It is not readily known whose bright idea was this.
Prior to the opening of the terminal hub, buses from Robinsons Starmills made a U-turn at a small roundabout a kilometre away in Barangay Lagundi, Mexico and then proceeded to SM City’s designated bus stops to load and unload passengers too.
The way the new traffic set up goes now, SM City has been scratched off the buses’ route. Not only that. It is SM City too that suffers more from the traffic gridlock, with its entry point routinely blocked.
While Robinsons Starmills’ egress, further west and directly opposite the NLEx exit, is easily accessible. As much a synergized traffic system as cutting edge marketing strategy looks the interregional terminal hub to us. Great move, Robinsons.
Suffer now SM. Yeah, hosting the city government’s Giant Lantern Festival and the Sinukwan Festival pays. Handsomely, at that.
Pray and tell, CSF, this ain’t some payback, er, instant ROI for investments in the form of sponsorships to those events.
