Ending the gridlock and paralysis

AT long last, we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. With still 20 months remaining in office, the Duterte administration is barreling its way to delivering its major election promise to make the gridlock and paralysis in Edsa a thing of the past. Many past administrations had been bedeviled by the horrendous traffic in our nation’s capital, which is notorious all over the world.

Driving in Jakarta, Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh is no sweat compared to Metro Manila. Based on a study by the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the National Economic and Development Authority in 2018, the traffic jam in Metro Manila costs a daily economic loss of P3.5 billion. Unless the situation is addressed, the loss will grow to P5 billion a day a decade from now, which would seriously set back our development. These monstrous traffic woes have been with us decades ago but it’s only during the past 20 or 25 years that commuters and motorists have complained about it. In the 1970s, I would leave my work in Pasay City at 4:30 p.m. and take a jeepney ride to Quiapo, walk half a kilometer to San Beda and still manage to attend my first class at 5:30 p.m. In the 1990s, I could schedule a court hearing in Manila in the morning, take a quick lunch and still attend preliminary investigation at the Fiscal’s Office in Pasay or in Makati at 1:30 p.m. Traffic was manageable then and you

can catch up with your appointment on time. Now, it would take a miracle to do that.

Today, if you work in Makati or BGC and you live in Quezon City ( before the work-at-home arrangement was adopted), it would be a hassle to drive to work unless you leave your place at 5 a.m. to beat the traffic. It’s the same ordeal when getting home where it will take you 40 minutes just to hit Edsa or C-5 coming from BGC or MBC. It would be hideous to subject your unmarried son or daughter to such a daily punishment. Renting or boarding in Makati or BGC and spending for one’s food will be a major expense. The option is to buy him or her a condo if the parents can afford it. What about the average workers who commute daily? What time do you think they rise from their bed to be at work on time? Do you think their kids are still awake to join them for dinner and somehow make up for leaving them still asleep in the morning? Traffic also accounts for the loss of family bonding, which no money can compensate. Cars, public or private, are supposed to provide convenience to the motorists and riding public. But when there are too many cars and the road system is inadequate, the situation can cause a colossal headache on the part of the government. Metropolitan Manila Development Authority was conceived to address the complex problems like traffic congestion in the metropolis but it has been overtaken by the rapid growth of the urban centers. We have seen quite a number of traffic experiments - removing left turns and right turns, installing U-turns, removing U-turns, synchronized traffic lights, etc.—but they failed to ease the traffic. Now, we have removed the U-turns in Edsa, relocated the bus stops and provided bike lanes but whether it will solve the bedlam in Edsa or not remains to be seen. What we need is sustainable and lasting solutions to the traffic puzzle, which has confounded every post-edsa revolution president. The traffic bottleneck at Edsa had become a major issue in the last presidential election and posed a challenge to the candidates. And candidate Duterte boldly accepted it and pledged to solve it if elected.

Last week, the Department of Public Works and Highways has touted its accomplishments as it moves closer to significantly complete its “grand Edsa Decongestion Master Plan, composed of a network of infrastructure projects.” Secretary Mark Villar proudly announced that travel time across Metro Manila will be cut down significantly. He proudly said that “the promise of President Duterte to decongest Edsa will soon be a reality. Soon, travel time from North Luzon expressway to South Luzon expressway will only be 30 minutes.” Ambitious words but if you look at the ongoing projects which are poised to be completed by the end of the Duterte term, or soon thereafter, the traffic nightmares in Edsa would no longer haunt us in our sleep. The massive decongestion program consists of 14 major roads and expressways and 11 bridges with total project cost of P222.6 billion, more or less. The recently completed Skyway Stage 3 Project alone, an elevated expressway which connects the SLEX from Buendia in Makati to the NLEX in Balintawak, Quezon City, will decongest Edsa by as much as 55,000 vehicles per day. This major project was undertaken by the San Miguel Corp. There are other significant road infrastructures being built by other partner private companies such as the Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. which will complement the Skyway Project. Four bridges spanning the Pasig River are expected to be completed next year while three others are in the pipeline. Some of the flagship projects, not only in Metro Manila but in other places as well, may not be finished by 2022, when President Duterte leaves office. In fact, roughly one-half to twothird of them may only be completed but no one can question that the “Build, Build, Build” program has changed the physical landscape of our country, particularly Metro Manila. And hopefully when the Edsa decongestion is completed, we can all sigh with great relief: “Free at last, free at last from the gridlock and paralysis of Edsa.”