Poe flags car congestion in Senate hearing on traffic

ASIDE FROM the poor enforcement of laws, Senator Grace Poe blamed Metro Manila’s traffic nightmare on too many vehicles plying too few streets.

At the hearing by the Public Services Committee on proposals to grant emergency powers to President Rodrigo R. Duterte to solve the country’s transport problems, Ms. Poe, committee chairperson, noted that, for Metro Manila, which has an area of 636 square kilometers, “the ideal road network should be around 8,200 kilometers.”

“However, our current road network is only at 5,220 kilometers. This means that we lack around 3,000 kilometers of roads, which is roughly the distance between Manila to Tokyo,” she pointed out.

On EDSA, which has a capacity of 6,000 vehicles per hour in each direction, Ms. Poe said the Metro Manila Development Authority, on July 27, “recorded 7,500 vehicles per direction per hour…which amounts to an excess of 1,500 vehicles per direction per hour.” — InterAksyon. com with