Flood Control, Sewerage and Road Network
Flood Control
The area near Laguna de Bay, covering portions of Barangays Evangelista, Mabini and Santiago were subject to flooding. The flooding is basically caused by heavy rains and backflow for the lake. Other areas affected are usually caused by overspill of rivers, streams and creeks especially near bridges.
Sewerage
In the lower urban area, a system of canals collect the wastewater coming from surface runoff, households and commercial establishments. This eventually discharges into the Baras River. There is no treatment of wastewater before its discharge into the River. The same holds true for most of the farms in the midland, upper upland and lower upland, wherein wastes are directly discharged back to the environment.
TRANSPORTATION
The transportation system of Baras consists mainly of the network of local, provincial and national roads. This basically links the different parts of Baras. This also connects Baras to its neighboring municipalities and cities within Rizal and the rest of the eastern portion of Luzon Island. Water transportation along Laguna de Bay is not a common means of transporting goods and people.
Road Network
The summary of road classifications by political administration is shown in Table 7 below. Details of road classification into barangay, municipal, provincial and national are shown in Tables 3, 4 & 5. The road network is likewise complemented by a total nine (9) bridges spanning around 336 meters. Details are shown in Table 6.
Baras has an adequate road network that covers the entire municipality. It has enough links that integrates various places/localities within and outside of the municipalities. Generally, the road network is poorly maintained especially those in the midland. Only the municipal roads within the urban lowland are relatively in a good condition. Even portions of the national and provincial roads are starting to deteriorate.
It can be observed that around 5,316 metric tons1 of farm products annually has to be brought into the urban lowland and outside of the poblacion for trading. Substantial volume comes from midland, lower upland and upper upland. It is also at these areas where roads are in a bad state hindering accessibility. This situation results to higher transportation cost.
Source: Baras Comprehensive Land Use Plan
