Take out vehicles that are where they shouldn’t be

Traffic management experts have consistently mentioned several reasons for the metro’s traffic woes.

The most mentioned are the lack of a reliable mass transport infrastructure coupled with the absence of a well-planned integrated transportation system.

Also mentioned is the presence of an obsolete road network and of small main thoroughfares compared to the metro’s everincreasing population of citizens and denizens which, for a developing economy, normally comes with an almost equally increasing number of vehicles.

The problem of an obsolete road network is being addressed by a network of skyways establishing vital links that would lessen traffic volume in EDSA while the absence of a well-planned integrated transportation system is also being worked out though with seemingly less success.

Now the myopic view of blaming the sale of too many cars in the country as the culprit in having our present traffic woes has also been addressed possibly by those who came out with the drunken idea themselves, I guess when they woke up one morning sans a hangover.

I suppose they realized that it’s not the unprecedented success of our auto industry that’s to be blamed. It is not the successful sales of vehicles, which is the cause per se but the presence of many of these vehicles where they should not be.

And the MMDA, in its continuing efforts to find a solution, no matter if it’s stopgap, to our miserable day-to-day existence trapped within the confines of the vehicle transporting us while stuck in traffic gridlocks, may have nailed one — lessen the volume of traffic in EDSA by banning vehicles that shouldn’t be there — like provincial buses.

Many observers are now saying that the MMDA’s move not to allow provincial buses to enter EDSA during rush hours has been long time coming. The ban will cover northbound and southbound provincial buses traversing EDSA from Pasay City to Cubao,

Quezon City from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

And we will have to also thank the provincial bus operators for their cooperation in seeing this through via a dry run scheduled starting July 24 with a quid

quo pro of exempting provincial buses passing EDSA from the United Vehicular Volume Reduction Program, commonly known as number coding.

The traffic scheme is seen to speed up travel of private motorists along EDSA and of passenger buses using the yellow lane during peak hours.

The regulation will be effective until the three bus terminals being constructed are operational. These are the bus terminals in Valenzuela set to be operational in

August, the Parañaque Integrated Terminal Exchange set to open in September and the bus terminal in Sta. Rosa, Laguna scheduled for operation in December. Way to go, guys.