MMDA: EDSA traffic ‘like Holy Week’

Unlike last Saturday’s kilometerslong traffic gridlock along EDSA, no traffic problems were reported along Metro Manila’s longest highway on the first day of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit yesterday.

Emmanuel Miro, head of the Task Force ASEAN of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA), said the public seemed to have listened to their appeal to avoid EDSA until Wednesday.

“Generally, there was no traffic on EDSA and it was like Holy Week,” he told reporters, adding that the government’s decision to make yesterday a special non-working holiday and not lifting the number coding scheme contributed to “no traffic, no motorists and no commuters.

Miro said only minimal problems were reported along Ortigas Avenue, Congressional Avenue and at a mall in Mandaluyong. He attributed them to the narrow roads and the ASEAN lane barriers.

Thousands of northbound and southbound motorists were stuck in traffic for more than five hours from Balintawak to Taft Avenue in Pasay City on Saturday after the MMDA closed down the two innermost lanes of EDSA for the exclusive use of ASEAN delegates.

Bong Nebrija, MMDA operations supervisor, said motorists can use C-5 or alternate routes instead of using EDSA during the ASEAN summit.

MICHAEL VARCAS, EDD GUMBAN The stretch of EDSA in Kamuning, Quezon City is practically empty of motorists at around 8 a.m. yesterday. At left, militants march along España Boulevard to protest US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out from the Paris climate accord. They...