Congestion is a growing problem

LOS ANGELES, California – Urban congestion is becoming an increasingly explosive social issue here. An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal the other week talked about how a green conscious California is keeping what looks like an ecologically designed new community from being built.

It is about the Newhall Ranch project in north Los Angeles County. It “aims to provide housing for nearly 60,000 people as well as tens of thousands of jobs at stores, schools and recreational centers…

“With energy-efficient lighting, comprehensive recycling, bike trails and drought-tolerant landscaping, the 12,000-acre planned community would be a green Levittown. But the proposed development – one of the biggest in state history – has been under siege from its inception in 1994 by environmental activists.”

It should be a welcome development in ecology conscious California, but as the WSJ reports, “ecovangelists are trying to block any economic development that could help support more people.” They are worried the state would be unable to meet its program to cut carbon greenhouse-gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, if California’s current population grows to about 50 million over the next 35 years.

I suspect there is more than just concern for carbon emissions and other ecological factors at play. Folks here are also feeling the pressure of population growth and there is also a hint of class conflict at work.

A reader wrote this comment to the WSJ article: “I live near the area in question....the medium size city that would be built would be primarily for upper middle class professionals. Most of them would work in Los Angeles. That means a commute via the I-5 twice a day. That freeway is already overcrowded. Smog, over-crowding, etc.

“Plus all those huge homes, with multiple vehicles will have gardeners, cleaning ladies, nannies, etc.

Where is the water coming from? People with homes are already conserving, is it so more people can come in?

“California is primarily a dry Mediterranean climate to desert. We need less people, not more.”

Oh gee. They are expecting 50 million by 2050 in a state with a land area larger than our country and they are feeling crowded.

It is difficult for me to feel sympathetic given our Mega Manila, including a few adjacent provinces, must be about 20 million already. And driving from north to south from San Francisco to San Diego, as well as around the Los Angeles and Orange counties, gives me the impression they still have plenty of wide and open spaces out there.

But it is true that evidence of overcrowding is visible as one drives into San Francisco on the 101. Hillsides are developed for housing. And the rush hour traffic can be frustrating, but still nothing compared to ours in Metro Manila.

I am sure California will remain very much habitable in the foreseeable future. Not so Metro or Mega Manila. My friend John Forbes of the American Chamber told a reporter last week that Metro Manila will be uninhabitable in four years because of traffic gridlock.

My other good friend, Rene Santiago, a transportation expert consulted by many Asean governments, did some number crunching and told John he was too kind in his assessment.

Rene explained our traffic gridlock is a consequence of the economic dominance of Metro Manila, combined with high population and vehicle densities. All these conspire to produce approximately 18 million motorized trips per day in 2014. Rene said that is not high at 1.4 trip rate per capita by the standards of global metropolises. Saigon for example, exhibits trip rate above three.

But our problem, Rene pointed out, is that car travel accounts for 30 percent of person-kilometer, but occupy 72 percent of road space. The 2014 Household Survey data of DOTC showed that work (17 percent) and school trips (15 percent) are the dominant purposes of those trips.

Rene continued: “Imagine 700,000 more vehicles in five years! The downward drift to traffic hell is inevitable — simply because little has been done in the last 20 years, specially since 2010.”

Rene said the combination of increasing incomes, liberal financing, low gas prices and traffic congestion create a positive feedback loop to perdition. More cars on the road result in longer travel times for all.

Rene warned the daily trips across the road network have reached saturation point (volume greater than 80 percent of capacity) and the congestion cost is estimated at P2.4 billion a day.

The simple math, Rene pointed out, is that it would take more than three hours to clear 6,000 cars in a lane of road designed for 2,000 cars per hour. “Since infrastructure supply cannot expand faster than required, the only practical relief (to year 2020) is for adjustment in demand: change commuting and working habits – voluntary or mandatory.”

Can we build more roads? We can do that, Rene said, but it would entail a huge displacement of people and demolition of existing structures.

“The supply of road is not miniscule – estimated at 16,500 lane-kilometers. If rearranged into a straight line, they would form two (four-lane, each) expressways from Aparri to Jolo. But Metro Manila’s road density (25.8 lane-km/km2) is higher than Singapore (12.7). Besides, any new road will be filled up upon its completion.”

There may be some relief, Rene said, if and only if, more of the trips happen on high occupancy vehicles such as buses and trains.

But, Rene pointed out, car users would only accept a shift from personal to collective transport if the convenience of car trips is offset by the advantages of public transport. That can happen by giving public transport lane priority to achieve short travel times similar to rail transit, at the expense of private cars.

What else could be done by a competent and action-oriented government? Rene thinks we need to add 40 kms of mass transit lines (95 percent of which could have been completed by 2015, if the DOTC was more competent), combined with capacity expansion to two times current levels.

Rehabilitation of the current mass transit systems (MRT3, LRT1 and 2 and PNR commuter service) will take time, even if we assume we will have more competent DOTC officials in the new administration.

The new MRT-7 or Novaliches line will yet break ground early this year if San Miguel gets the go signal from DOTC. In the meantime, Rene suggested some measures to alleviate the congestion problem because “to do nothing means everyone for himself, gridlocks to be the ‘new normal’.”

One such measure suggested is to “reduce trips by telecommuting, staggered or regular, for knowledge workers (five percent leads to 170,000 trips reduction).

“Stagger working and school days, four-days spread over a six-day cycle (trip reduction- 1 million/day)

“Car pooling, three persons per car, specially for schools and CBDs.

“Ration road space by means of Electronic Road Pricing.

“Change residences closer to work (not an option for low income workers).”

Rene is not too hopeful positive change is in the horizon and I agree with him. Those simple suggestions require strong and savvy leadership, which as Rene pointed out, is the scarcest resource in government today.

Actually, our congestion problem is felt not just in traffic gridlocks, but also in our housing problem. Housing is part of the JICA Dream Plan DOTC is talking about. While having too many people in a limited area is part of the problem, the largest cause is our incompetent government that has neglected planning for our growing needs.

In California, they are increasingly feeling congestion and want less people living around them. So there are those here who want to restrict new developments, no matter how ecologically designed, to keep the people to land ratio as comfortable as possible.

They have made some bad decisions in the Los Angeles area when some decades ago, they favored cars over public transport which resulted in a gigantic urban sprawl. They are trying to remedy that now, but relief will take a lot of time.

In the end, it is all about quality of life. We are used to one at the low end but some of us aspire for something better. Here in California, they are desperate to preserve what they have now.

There are lessons for us to learn in the Los Angeles experience. But to benefit from it, we need a government that can dream and work for a brighter future. Oh well…

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