EDITORIAL - The problem lies elsewhere

Laws are always understood to be for the greater good. This is probably the reason why a Cebu City ordinance banning the entry of jeepneys from Mandaue City has not been implemented for some time already. It was probably for the greater good that it stayed frozen.

Then recently, announcements were made that the long dormant ordinance will finally be implemented, strictly and vigorously. Drivers of Mandaue jeepneys are naturally not pleased. But they really do not lose anything.

The bigger worry is the added burden the ban will entail on commuters --- workers and students whose jobs and studies in Cebu City companies and schools contribute much to Cebu City coffers by means of the taxes these companies and schools pay to the Cebu City government.

Yet they are the ones who are being greatly inconvenienced. They are the ones who will have to shell out more for their fares. And for no better reason than that the Cebu City government has failed to solve its chaotic traffic problems.

Cebu City is notorious for its patchy solutions to long term problems on traffic, relying heavily on the unreliable system of rerouting to decongest major arteries, as if everything is not connected to the same road network that has not grown as much as traffic volume has.

Okay, so you ban Mandaue jeepneys. What next? Traffic authorities probably do not read newspapers. But a common story in the business news pages is the claim of each and every major carmaker about record sales, indicating a problematic surge in private vehicles on city streets.

And that only takes into account brand new vehicles. Nothing is being reported about the sale of second hand vehicles that are snapped up by buyers as quickly as importers can import them. Or as fast as smugglers can smuggle them in.

There is also the unrestrained entry of more and more taxis, on the strength of franchises so dubious they are now the subject of a supposedly full-blown investigation. Clearly the city has a big traffic problem. But it is not posed by jeepneys alone.

A check on jeepneys will probably reveal there are very few, if ever, new ones that have entered the network over the past several years. That means the jeepneys you see now are the same jeepneys you saw years ago. So the greater contributor to the problem has to lie elsewhere.