Responsible vehicle ownership can help ease traffic

WITH the Christmas holiday season fast approaching, and many roads and bridges closed for repairs or upgrading, we have long resigned ourselves to a particularly traffic grid-locked Metro Manila in the coming weeks.

But there is hope in the Senate move to enact a “Proof of Parking Space Act,” Senate Bill No. 201, now in the Senate Committee on Trade, Commerce, and Entrepreneurship. The committee recently held a hearing on the bill, filed by Sen. William Gatchalian, which he believes will help ease traffic congestion in the country.

Under the measure, the Land Transportation Office (LTO) would require a vehicle owner to present an affidavit attesting that he has a garage for it, subject to confirmation by the LTO before it issues an official registration.

The measure, the senator said, seeks to instill a culture of responsible vehicle ownership. “If you buy a car,” he said, “you have to make sure that you have a parking space for your own vehicle.” It is a sound and basic principle, but its widespread violation is one of the principal causes of traffic jams in Metro Manila today.

On any given day, motorists seeking to avoid a traffic jam on a main street like Epifanio de los Santos Ave. by turning into a side street will find it lined end to end with parked cars owned by renters of houses or apartments without garages or driveway space.

According to the Land Transportation Office, a total of 10,410,814 vehicles were registered from 2015 to 2017. Some 1,000 vehicles are registered every day, 600 of which are newly purchased. Whether running in main roads or parked in side streets, they add to the problem of Metro traffic jams.

There are many other factors blamed for the problem, with proposed solutions classified by some analysts into three basic groups. Enforcement – traffic planners and traffic officers doing their job well. Education – motorists who know the rules and follow them. And Engineering – enough roads and overpasses for the huge volume of vehicles using them.

Requiring every vehicle owner to have his own place in which to park it would be a small part of the engineering solution. It would also be part of the wider area of education, of – in the words of Senator Gatchalian – developing a culture of responsible vehicle ownership.