Counter flows and skipped lanes

IT MAY JUST be a technicality, but the problem in the Metro Manila is not “traffic” as we know it, because there will always be “traffic” even if there is only one vehicle on the road.

The problem in Metro Manila really is the flow of traffic here, which is almost always slow, and sometimes stagnant for so many hours.

At the outset, some people would tend to think that slow traffic in Metro Manila is due to too many vehicles plying our roads here. That may be one of the reasons, but certainly that is not the only reason.

Besides, I have observed that in some countries, the traffic would still flow smoothly, even if there are too many vehicles on the road. Perhaps even more vehicles that we could ever find here.

Don’t laugh now, but I do believe that one of the causes of slow traffic in Metro Manila is behavior of our drivers, or in other words, the lack of discipline among our drivers, no matter what type of vehicle it is that they drive.

To put it in another way, I do believe that the flow of traffic in Metro Manila could flow faster if only the drivers would obey all the traffic rules.

What are these rules?

It could be as simple as not overtaking where it is prohibited, not counter flowing in the wrong places, and not staying in the proper lanes everywhere.

Of course, more refresher courses would help, but what would even help more is to penalize all the drivers who break the laws, and to raise their insurance rates if they violate.

A FOREST IN EVERY CITY, A CITY IN EVERY FOREST

In the past, we destroyed our forests in order to build our cities. Fast forward to the present times, we have barren mountains around us, and we have global warming all over us.

Even if many people actually believe that we could still bring back the trees but not the forests, I believe otherwise because there i s now a science that we call reforestation.

Other than that, I also believe that wherever there are still some surviving forests here and there, we could also build new cities without destroying the majority of the trees, just cutting enough to build small homes here and there, just enough to build small communities for the settlers who will make a living for themselves, as well as to take care of the forests.

In other countries, the foreign governments would hire professional rangers to watch and care for their forests, which is really a smart thing to do. Perhaps we can do that here too.

In some cases, the forest rangers that they hire are the indigenous people who are already living there.

Again, that is really a smart thing to do, because these people have been watching and caring for the forests for a long time already. And if we plant more trees in our cities, we could make the local temperatures become cooler, even if we are still too far away from solving the problem of global warming.

What is even better is if we could plant more fruit trees, so that it could also contribute to our food security. That could also include high value trees like coffee./