Last Monday, the suffering motorists of this hapless metropolis found opportunity to be hopeful. The Highway Patrol Group (HPG) took over management of Edsa, displacing the woefully incompetent MMDA.
For a while, the hopefulness seemed warranted. The vendors who occupied up to three lanes of the vital avenue at Balintawak were pushed away. Buses began sticking to their designated lanes. Traffic seemed to be moving better in this congested avenue.
By Tuesday, much of the hopefulness evaporated. Edsa seemed even more congested, even more choked than before. Traffic flow was slower. The “chokepoints” were that exactly: choked.
The HPG put in a gallant effort – as gallant as Sisyphus pushing a rock up the hill. The harder the unit tried to manage the infernal traffic at Edsa, the more the road clogged. The more they try to untangle vehicular flow, the slower the flow became.
When they cleared Balintawak, the speedier movement of vehicles from the northern end of the avenue caused a dreadful pileup from the West Avenue junction right down to Ortigas. Half the Cabinet (or so it seems) was on the roadway, trying to figure out a solution to this or that hitch.
Not all parts of Edsa was submerged during the heavy downpour Tuesday night. But vehicular movement everywhere slowed to a crawl. In many of the arteries delivering vehicles to Edsa, traffic just got worse. The ardor of our most competent motorists was simply not enough to keep things moving. Many parts of Edsa transformed into a parking lot when the heavy downpour ceased.
There are limits to what the HPG might be able to do should they decide to take over the roads. Thousands of new vehicles are purchased and sold every week. Road space become scarcer by the day – especially since the administration added no new road space in the time it was in power. Instead, we will recall, President Aquino boasted the congested streets are a consequence of our dynamic growth.
There are limits to what simply deploying more officers to the congested roads might achieve. They might enforce a few behavioral changes among our drivers. The growth in the number of vehicles needing road space is not matched at all by the puny effort of this administration to build more roads and close the infra gap.
In the end, traffic will begin to move only after the infra gap is closed. The gnarled traffic in Metro Manila merely a symptom of the sustained neglect of government for much-needed infra.
For instance, it took the Arroyo administration about 18 months to close the loop between the LRT-1 and the MRT-3. After more than five years in office, this administration has failed to build the common station that will link the two lines.
The questionable awarding of maintenance contracts to incompetent service providers caused the deterioration of our commuter rail system. It took many years to procure new rail cars for the MRT. Breakdowns in this particular facility are not only more frequent; the breakdowns have actually grown more dangerous to the lives and well-being of commuters.
Because the decrepit commuter rail lines could not cope with the increase in passengers, they force passengers back to the road. That produces traffic congestion.
After over five years in office, this administration has not added new rail lines – even if the need for them has been crying out for government action. The existing rail services were allowed to deteriorate. There are not enough railway cars to accommodate the volume of passengers needing a ride. Consequently, commuters are forced back to the road to add to the traffic congestion.
It is not only the light rail services that have deteriorated so drastically in the last five years. The PNR is completely busted.
The perfected contract to dredge the Laguna de Bay and use the muck to build a circumferential road around the flood-prone lake was unceremoniously abrogated when the Aquino administration came to power. That could have provided new road space relieving the old avenues serving the metropolis.
The Ramos administration began building the C-6 road. This administration simply stopped completing this road. As a result both Edsa (C-4) and C-5 are now overloaded with vehicular traffic.
Very late in the day, the Aquino administration finally approves the construction of two more light rail lines. Consequently, any attempt to bid out these projects will appear like midnight deals.
Over the past five years, the DPWH and the MMDA were constantly at odds. Somehow, the MMDA acquired veto power over public works that needed to be done. Projects were rejected or postponed on the basis of what was politically acceptable.
No new bridges were built across the Pasig River. As a result, the decrepit Guadalupe Bridge could not be repaired because there are no available alternative routes to cross the river that divides the metro.
Instead, the MMDA launched its Pasig River ferry service that could only move a few hundred commuters a day at best. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of commuters could hardly board the decrepit light rail system.
No amount of tinkering with traffic flow along Edsa will solve the fundamental problem: the absence of an efficient rapid mass transit system. No new rail service will be delivered in the life of this incompetent administration – not even the extension of existing lines President Aquino promised to deliver at the pain of having himself run over by the trains.
In a word, the horrendous traffic jams that now waste our working days and hold back economic activity are the outcomes of government’s failure to provide the needed infra.