CHAPTER I

I-1. Rationale of the Study

The Municipality of Dumanjug is one of the town in Cebu Province located 78.5

kilometers south from Cebu City bearing an approximate land area over 8,000 hectares with

57,823 population, where 4.66% of it represents the population of barangay Liong as determined

by the 2020 Census ( PhilAtlas,2020). Liong, one of the barangay in the Municipality of

Dumanjug 600 meters from the market, has four educational structures near the main road (two

primary, one secondary, one tertiary) thus, making the area more populated.

Furthermore, the number of individuals accessing the main road (local and nonlocal

residents) is related to its population growth causing road conflicts to arise consequently. Though

the main road was already widened, still there are factors related to road conflicts that the

municipality failed to recognize and one of it is the safety of the pedestrians and their difficulties

in crossing the four-laned road specially the primary schoolers and the senior citizens.

In relation to this, according to Bill Bryson, “Roads get wider, busier and low friendly to

pedestrians. And all of the development based around cars, like big sprawling shopping malls.

Everything seems to be designed for the benefits of the automobile and not for the benefit of the

human being.” Thus, the researchers aim to address the main problem regarding the pedestrians’

security as well as to minimize accidents and keep order between vehicle users and pedestrians.
 The foremost problems that researchers discerned were the area is prone to accident, the

road widening is not in favour for primary schoolers, as well as senior citizens. There were

already histories of road incidents happened at barangay Liong and one of it was a 75-year-old

man, Lorenzo Noel died after he was hit by a speeding motorcycle past 6:30 pm. Many such

cases happened for the past few years. Conflicts between vehicle users and pedestrians will

continue to exist, leading to pedestrians being involved in or being the cause of road accidents

due to inadequate facilities for pedestrian movement.

In order to address this problem, the researchers propose an installation of skywalk

structure at barangay Liong near Dumanjug Central Elementary School. The linear skywalk

having the parameters of 16 meters long, 2.5 meters wide and 9 meters in elevation, will be of

great aid for pedestrians specially students in general, senior citizens and other local and

nonlocal residents enabling them to move in an enclosed skywalk facility while being protected

from adverse weather and vehicles.

Thus, the objective of this study is to suggest an installation of skywalk structure on

highway at barangay Liong to ensure the safety of the pedestrians by enhancing the walking

environment on the road that will minimize pedestrian accidents and injuries for the upcoming

generations.