Hate the traffic? - Don't drive

It seems like a crazy solution.  It's really the most effective, actually.  It reminds me of a joke I read years ago, which start with a question - "What is the primary cause of divorce in the U.S.?"  To which the smart-aleck answer, of course is, "Marriage!"  There won't be any divorce if nobody marries in the first place.  As there won't be any traffic to speak of, if people don't drive vehicles and simply walk.

So people will resist it any way they could.  But whether we like it or not, we will reach that stage where we are forced to refrain from driving our cars.  At the end of the day, we are forced to analyze, to use reasoning borne out of accurate information and basic theorems of mathematics and scientific principles we learn in high school and college.  We get to this stage because we often get tempted to apply experience, feelings, or opinions in solving transport and traffic problems when the solution starts with a simple 1 + 1 = 2, or if you want more complex ones - "matter can't be created nor destroyed," or "no two things occupy the same space at the same time."  Only when we're faced with a wall do we realize traffic is simply algebra and physics.  Maybe a little calculus.

In our country's capital, the latest proposal was revive the "odd-even" scheme (again).  Just like popular songs and music which have revivals and retro's every now and then over the decades, traffic demand management (TDM) measures like the "odd-even" schemes or the "color coding" ones make their comebacks, too.  The Odd-Even scheme, technically known as the Unified Vehicular Volume Reduction Program (UVVRP), was introduced in Metro Manila in the 1990's, modified many times over, eventually giving way to the color-coding today.  What it effectively does is allow only half the existing cars to ply the road.

Let's differentiate the two.  Odd-even schemes allows only vehicles with plate numbers ending with odd numbers to ply one day and those ending with even numbers the next day, and so on, usually with a break on weekends.  That's effectively restricting half the vehicle population.  Color coding (and I don't see why it's called that in the first place), restricts vehicles with plate numbers ending in 1 or 2 on Monday, 3 and 4, on Tuesday, and so on.  On a decimal scale, that's asking 2 out of 10, or 20% of the cars to stay at home at any given time.  Actually these schemes originally applied to cars only but eventually were applied to all vehicle categories.  Not a wise move, I might add, when public transportation should have taken the slack and made mobility more efficient.

Do you like that?  It doesn't matter if you do or don't, since we in Cebu are headed to that direction. Maybe we'll try to do the math in our next article but it will suffice to say, the transportation situation in Cebu will get to these drastic schemes in the next decade.  And don't place your bet on the Bus Rapid Transit which is currently being designed.  That will be a huge relief if it can be finished on time (keeping my fingers crossed).  But note that it only covers a very small part of the metropolis.  The technical studies for the other phases of the network have not even started yet.

Come to think of it, the BRT would have ensured we would never go into any TDM measures ever, at least not of the forcible ones.  Public transportation is, in a way, a TDM by itself, one which is voluntary and willingly embraced by the urban commuters themselves, as the modal preference shift to public transport.  But public acceptance is so slow, including that of the leaders that until now, nothing is done on the network corridors.  Maybe odd-even schemes are preferred.  I sincerely hope not, but it will come.