Traffic gridlock is forever!

The gridlock in our streets is getting pretty bad and can only get worse. I cope by rarely going anywhere beyond walking distance from where I live.

I mostly refuse to go to Makati because that means a minimum one way driving time of an hour and a half, often more. Even just to go from the corner of C-5 and Julia Vargas to SM Megamall, a distance of less than five kilometers takes 45 minutes to an hour most times during a work day.

It is not just me. A friend told our Viber group that he “left this morning from Shaw Boulevard to Medical City using a car, a 4.4-kilometer distance. It took me one hour 35 minutes or 21.6 minutes per kilometer. I missed my appointment. I walk three times faster than that.”

The best solution for me is going digital… Zoom or FaceTime. Indeed, even before the pandemic, working from home was a solution transportation officials considered in the face of traffic problems. But the concern was slow internet, specially in middle class residential areas and the reluctance of corporate managements to experiment.

COVID forced everyone’s hand. Even the BPOs with sophisticated digital set-ups had to replicate those in the homes of their key managers and employees. They also had to subsidize subscriptions of their staff to upgrade broadband connections for greater reliability.

From what the BPO industry folks have told me, they are happy with the work from home arrangements and it did not detract from the efficiency expected by their clients. In fact, they were up in arms when our government was forcing them to go back to office work in the misguided belief that this will give a semblance of normality and lift GDP numbers.

Going back to the office means enduring our serious traffic gridlocks and that’s bad for the economy.

So, traffic gridlocks are a not a sign of a booming economy as some might think. It is a sign of government failure. It is sheer elitism to think it is alright for the working class to  just suffer the torture of commuting to work for the good of the economy.

Indeed, unless by some miracle our traffic gridlock problem is significantly alleviated soon, work-from-home will be the logical survival mode. Our workers cannot be forever waking before dawn to get to offices by 8 am and get back home close to midnight every day. That’s physically punishing.

JICA estimates that our economy is losing P5 billion a day due to gridlock in Metro Manila’s congested streets, and that was some years ago… must be more losses by now. Of course, the emotional strain and its impact on the health of our workers can’t be quantified.

The thing is… there is no solution to our traffic gridlock problem on the horizon. That’s because different administrations merely allowed the problem to fester through the decades. Now it is a problem that defies quick and simple solutions.

In 2019, there were 369,941 new vehicle sales. In 2022, it has almost recovered post pandemic to 352,596. Picture 300,000 new vehicles being added into our streets every year for the last 10 or so years, and we still have the same kilometers of roads.

If we had half competent public officials, they would have built mass transport systems early on because this is the only efficient and cost-effective way of moving people in a metropolitan area. But our officials just did nothing competently. A four-kilometer extension of LRT2 with no ROW problems took 10 years to complete.

Before the end of the current administration, we will probably have some mass rail systems starting to operate. The MRT 7, which took our government 10 years to approve even if no government funds are involved, will start operating in two years. And despite all the time it took DOF and NEDA to approve it, the ROW was not delivered on time and that caused more delays.

The rail line connecting Clark to Metro Manila and on to Calamba will also be operational before the end of the term of the current administration.

The MRT3 could move more passengers if our government didn’t allow the Chinese to deliver trains that are off specifications… too heavy for the rail tracks. The warranty for the Japanese-repaired rail tracks will be cancelled if those Chinese Dalian trains are used.

The only thing that seems to work now is the EDSA Busway, even if it is incomplete. At least, commuters are spared the gridlock in the car lanes of EDSA. Good thing DOTr rejected the demand of some bus operators to field their 3000 buses on the curb side of EDSA like before the pandemic. That would have brought back the really bad old days.

Sec Jimmy Bautista is on the right track by privatizing the busway for greater operational efficiency.

If we are honestly looking for solutions, we should do what Singapore is doing. They are charging car owners congestion fees for the privilege of driving into a central business district during rush hours. They are also limiting the number of new cars on the road through a market-based system of buying the right to buy a car. They are also taking old cars beyond a certain age off the road.

Any solutions today are bound to be painful. We can only wait for the mass transit trains to start moving people.

Late as it is in the day, we need a plan to decongest Metro Manila. Build self-sufficient townships around the metro areas where one can walk or bike to work from home. Eastwood City, a center for BPOs, comes to mind.

Work from home for as many workers as it is possible is the only viable stopgap measure.

Reduce the number of commuters through work-from-home, reduce vehicles on the road through congestion fees, or suffer the daily carmageddon.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X (twitter) @boochanco