Wanted: Solutions to solve our traffic mess
Last Tuesday at the height of that fire that struck Barangay Luz where nearly 60 homes made of light materials were destroyed, traffic was snarled all over Cebu City because Arch. Reyes Ave. had to be closed while the Fire Brigade battled with the fire. To think Tuesday was quite a rainy day and still fire struck one of the most populated barangays in this city. Just one major artery was closed and traffic all over Cebu City was affected.
Meanwhile, if I were running this city, I would gather all those residents living in Barangay Luz and put them in tall condominiums and give the rest of the land to the developer who would build those condominiums for those living there. This may be wishful thinking, but with valuable land running out, this is one option that people ought to consider, more so that traffic along Arch. Reyes Ave. is already critical.
Indeed, traffic in Cebu City has already reached a critical level and if no one is planning for the future of Cebu City, we can only expect things to worsen to the level just like Metro Manila. This is why we should warn the Rama Government to stop all road experiments, like the recently concluded Road Sharing exercise last Sunday, which hassled a great majority of our citizenry, while a few people on bicycles or skateboards and joggers had a field day by having half of the road all to themselves.
Speaking of road experiments, years back when traffic started to become critical in Metro Manila, the Metro Manila Development Authority experimented with their "Odd-Even coding system", well, MMDA believes this to be so successful they've been doing this for a long time now. But I honestly believe that this system favors only the rich families who have two or more cars. The middle class family with only one car has to take public transportation on the days their car's plate number prevents them from using the family car.
But then, this is the Philippines where government agencies favor the rich who are given more importance than the middle class, while the poor still rides in a decrepit old jeepney. Of course the entry of the Light Rail Transit and the Metro Rail Transit has helped ease the traffic in Metro Manila. But even with the LRT and MRT around yet travelling for instance in EDSA takes hours instead of minutes. This is why you can say that Metro Manila has already gone beyond the critical level.
Today, MMDA has suggested for all government offices to go on a four-day workweek. This is the most ridiculous suggestion that I have ever heard to come out of Imperial Manila! These people are still on denial that, because of their sheer greed in grabbing all businesses and putting it in Metro Manila, they are now bursting at the seams. No one is talking about stopping all development in Metro Manila, which in my book is the only solution that would at least stop the worsening traffic there.
Here in Cebu, we can still improve our traffic. Yes, one is increasing traffic fines, which incidentally is opposed by the militant public utility jeepney drivers and operators. How many times have we written in this corner that we should go beyond increasing fines, which those erring public utility drivers wouldn't pay anyway? I dare say that we go into a "Strike Three, you're out!"
As I said, we have written this suggestion so many times already. Mind you this is being practiced in most western nations, like most of Europe and the USA. But then, this is the problem with our centralized form of government where everything has to emanate from central headquarters. So just imagine if the Land Transportation Office cannot even solve a simple lack of plate number problem, how can we expect it to solve the traffic mess that it created?
Meanwhile the news is all over town that the World Bank had finally approved the US$141 million dollars for the Bus Rapid Transit that we've all been waiting for. But after so many years of waiting, I'm beginning to have doubts for this project for the simple reason that looking back at the Curritiba, Brazil Stairless Bus, their system has dedicated roads just for the bus system, which I believe is impossible to do here because of our narrow roads. This is why I fully agree with the articles that said the BRT we will be having is not the solution to our traffic woes.
So with this information, I would like to find out what would be the total solution to Metro Cebu's traffic problems? I have already suggested to the officials of MEGA Cebu that the time is ripe for us to call another traffic summit so we could get ideas from people in the transportation industry. The last time we had a traffic summit was in the late 1990's when I was on top of the Cebu City Traffic Operations & Management. Unfortunately, most of the information we got from the summit was never implemented. So let's do it now before it's too late!
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