EDITORIAL - Patience is not enough

Bear with us, be patient, the government is asking motorists as traffic gridlocks worsen in Metro Manila due to numerous public works projects.

The public has no choice but to be patient or risk a hypertensive attack. But the government must also do more to reduce the inconvenience. Any motorist who has been caught in horrendous traffic jams in recent days can see that the suffering need not be so bad.

It’s not enough to field more traffic cops and aides of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority and local governments. Every traffic enforcer must know what to do – not just to stand around, often in the shadows, waiting to pounce on those who beat the red light or make a wrong turn, but to keep vehicular traffic moving as quickly as possible.

The job includes keeping intersections open when nothing is moving in one lane or direction, blocking areas where traffic can move freely. It also requires a stricter management of buses and jeepneys, which continue to stop wherever they please and turn certain spots as their terminals. This problem is obvious throughout EDSA including its junction with McKinley Road in Makati, along Roxas Boulevard near the Redemptorist Church in Baclaran where a road improvement project is ongoing, and at the MIA Road, which has been narrowed by the construction of the bypass toll road from the NAIA.

The failure to discipline bus drivers reinforces suspicions that traffic cops don’t want to get in trouble with certain powerful officials whose families own some of the largest bus companies operating in Metro Manila and Luzon.

Better traffic management in this period of intensified public works construction also entails fielding more traffic enforcers during downpours and even until midnight. With so many BPOs throughout the metropolis, Metro Manila no longer sleeps. Traffic is heavy even late into the night, when there are rarely enough cops to entangle gridlocks.

Traffic management will also vastly improve if the MMDA and Metro Manila mayors can work better together for the public good. Keeping traffic flowing in Metro Manila requires tight coordination among all the local government units plus the agency that supervises many traffic enforcers.  Gridlock in one city can spill over into others. Weak coordination can only result in traffic mismanagement.