Untangling our traffic mess

Napabayaan ng husto. We have neglected the problem for so long. Our traffic nightmare didn’t happen overnight. But like many of our national problems, we allowed it to fester. We kept on postponing the hard decisions we needed to do until the problem has become increasingly unbearable.

The traffic mess cannot be taken by itself. It is part of the bigger problem of urban sprawl. Together with flooding after an hour of rain, the rising crime rate and the poisonous air we inhale into our lungs, these are all consequences of really bad governance from local and national officials we have tolerated through the years.

True, there are no quick or easy fixes. Rerouting traffic and painting new lines in the streets are like rearranging chairs in the Titanic. Instilling discipline among our drivers by the HPG will help to at least protect our sanity but the big thing remains the same: we have too many cars using the same limited road space.

On the other hand, my friend Ed Yap, who chairs the Transport Committee of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) thinks it isn’t just the increasing number of cars. He told the Senate last Monday that just three or four maneuvering buses can choke off traffic entirely on EDSA, even if the number of cars is reduced. He showed photos of the pasaway buses.

The solution, according to Mr Yap, is fool-proofing roads by channelizing traffic. “A good model is the privately-managed and well-engineered Ayala Avenue, where traffic runs smoothly with hardly any enforcers needed.”

I have over the past couple of weeks received quite a bit of e-mails from readers offering their suggestions on how to alleviate the problem. Most are common sense solutions, but there a few imaginative ones.

There was a suggestion, a serious one I think, to put up a tube with a walkalator from Baclaran to North EDSA. The proponent justified it as cheaper than a subway system and easier to implement. Another proposed, must be in jest, to put a zip line along the same route.

I have passed on some of the other suggestions to Cabinet Secretary Rene Almendras and to Ed Yap.

One such reader, Danilo Reyes, proposed we deploy a fleet of dedicated air-con buses to bring passengers to the major office locations like Ayala Avenue, BGC, Sen. Gil Puyat Ave., Legaspi Village, etc. The buses will be stationed in strategic points at popular malls where the owners can leave their cars, such as Trinoma, SM and Robinson’s malls, Eastwood, etc.

When I forwarded the e-mail of Mr. Reyes to Sec. Almendras, he replied he is planning to field executive class buses to cut the number of cars on the road. That may work. I remember a time when I had myself dropped off at Ali Mall in Cubao to catch the Love Bus. I then picked up the Love Bus at Rustan’s on Ayala Avenue in the afternoon.

MAP’s Ed Yap is, however, afraid these buses may still get stranded on EDSA even with dedicated lanes. He wants government to implement an organized dispatch system for existing buses. But he admits, doing that requires political will.

 Ed’s point is to maximize use of existing rolling stock so as to get cooperation of bus owners. Ed wants to have those buses organized into an integrated unit and operate as a system to run in batches like a BRT or train coaches with limited time at bus stops. In short, the system should be operated like a train.

My friend and FEF colleague, Rene Santiago, a transport expert consulted by ADB, WB and some Asean countries also submitted two weeks ago his interim recommendations to government.  Excluded in his proposal are infrastructure additions - like new roads, mass transit, etc - because they are already in the official plan, and they will not have any impact, assuming these projects get started right away, until five years from now. Here is a summary of his key points:

 These set of interrelated measures fall into three categories – all aimed at moving more people per lane of road, rather than more vehicles.

1) Traffic management and enforcement (which MMDA was supposed to do) – retrain a unit that will focus on chokepoints, starting with EDSA. Re-establishing order to put an end to road anarchy is the most basic.

2) Road engineering – this is the easiest thing to do, such as clearing temporary obstacles, patching potholes, repaving, markings, signage, barriers at specific points/sections. Reducing cycle times of signals (especially when enforcers act as signalers at intersections) to reduce length of queues and gridlocks. But the difficult part is the opening of selected roads in gated communities – along the lines of the Friendship Route pioneered by Parañaque & Las Piñas.

3) Get the bus transport moving like a train system – a three-bus convoy escorted by cops on motorbikes to run on dedicated lanes on EDSA. It is meant to guarantee 45 minutes travel time from North Avenue to Taft. I proposed to call this Edsa “Boss” Mover. As the support facilities get installed, the cops can be withdrawn. Raging incrementalist at work. This is the easiest to fumble during execution.

Other complementary measures: a) car pooling and ride sharing in CBD (Makati, Ortigas, BGC) to be initiated by business groups; b) staggered four-day work weeks and work times; c) car pooling in car-rich schools (Ateneo, La Salle, Xavier, etc); d) dedicated lanes on the three expressways for high occupancy vehicles, which would incentivize car poolers; e) a system of trucking/hauling exchange in the port to reduce empty truck trips.

Rene S. noted the current traffic crisis has reached a stage where everyone must pitch in. No free riders.

Interim solutions aside, we still need an adequate mass transit system. The sad part is we won’t have one in the next five or even 10 years at the rate government is moving.

It is almost certain we will need a more drastic system not just of car use, but also car ownership as well. Something along the lines of Singapore’s system that makes the use of private cars economically prohibitive may have to be implemented here as well.

That means all cars will be required to have RFID tags like what they use at our expressways so those using their cars to enter high traffic areas must pay a fee. The fee will be calculated based on time of use. Peak hour use will be charged the highest rate. Collections should be used to improved public transport unlike our current road users’ tax which goes to the pockets of some officials.

We will also have to limit the number of new cars on the road. That is bad news for our car industry, specially because they just worked out a road map for the industry with DTI. Maybe a really high tax on old cars (to reduce air pollution) can be imposed or something along the lines of Singapore’s Certificate of Entitlement to buy a car or COE.

But the real solutions, long term as these are, must be fast tracked. We need to implement the so-called Dream Plan, a study made by JICA on how we can make Metro Manila livable.

The Dream Plan focuses on the transport infrastructure needed and also on proper urban planning. We also need to have an elected Metro Manila governor to have a government that is able to address metrowide problems,.

Proper urban planning is possible only if we have a responsible elected official with a metrowide view of traffic, flood control, sanitation and zoning. The small sultans we call mayors, all 17 of them, are too parochial in perspective to want to address these metro wide problems. Our political structure in Metro Manila is simply unresponsive.

The national government must lead the movement to depopulate the metro area by moving government agencies out to nearby provinces. Malacanang Palace can be converted into a museum and its current function moved into a well planned community like BCDA’s Green City.

It is good to know Ayala Land is leading the development of new planned communities out of Manila. The one in Porac and in Cavite that are along the lines of Nuvali in Laguna are laudable pioneering ventures that will eventually attract population and businesses out of Metro Manila.

We cannot go on like this. Something will have to give if we continue kicking the can down the road. Let us do the short term mitigation measures that may entail sacrifices. We don’t have a choice. We are sacrificing a lot now with our long commutes. Let us make sure our government moves with more speed and purpose on the long term projects. There is no other way.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco.