Ideas bloom on traffic fix

People are exasperated with traffic and are venting their frustrations a lot more than usual. Instead of just complaining, many are offering solutions.

Enhanced number coding, getting LTFRB to allow ride sharing, charging private vehicles congestion fees, more work at home via internet, etc. are suggestions I get in emails from readers.

It is good that people are getting involved and thinking of solutions. Then again, people have so much time on their hands stuck in traffic jams that they can actually focus on the problem.

Some are getting together and forming groups, harnessing brain power from highly educated professionals and forming an active interest group working to get their views heard by policy makers.

One such group is Move Metro Manila, a multi-sectoral informal group of transport users. They want to be part of the effort in resolving Manila’s mobility issues.

I met with them last Tuesday and they gave me a presentation of both long term and short-term solutions. Let us take the short term first.

But before everything else, let me make clear the point I made in a previous column on the issue.

The only real solution is mass transportation (MRT3, the San Miguel BRT running on Stage 3 of the Skyway now nearing completion and rationalizing the EDSA buses to be dispatched as needed via a network similar to what Grab is using, with drivers working for a salary). Beyond these three, everything is band-aid trying to deal with a gaping wound.

MRT3 is not going to happen soon. Even after Sumitomo fixes it under a JICA grant, its capacity remains the same. It will still not have enough cars to handle over 500,000 riders a day.

It gets worse. Move Metro Manila conducted interviews that revealed that the number coding scheme reduces the number of public transport vehicles to as high as 56 percent daily in some routes. It so happens that half the vehicles in some routes end in 9 or 0 so must be idled on Fridays.

Move Metro Manila did a series of consultations and identified one solution with the least cost and quite possibly the highest immediate impact on commuters: lifting the number coding scheme for public utility vehicles.

Number coding is theoretically supposed to reduce the number of vehicles on the road by 20 percent. That’s fine as applied to private vehicles. But applying number coding on public vehicles punishes the low income commuters.

High demand for public transport is very obvious. PUV terminals have long lines and waiting times for commuters to get a ride. Move Metro Manila found out from interviews of commuters that one out of five public transport users shifted to private vehicles due to the lack of public transport.

For commuters desperately waiting for a ride, they spill out to take one to two lanes of roads near PUV stops, slowing down traffic flow. Normal waiting time for a ride is from 30 minutes to over two hours.

So, Move Metro Manila is recommending one solution that can help commuters right away.

“Given the evidence of a shortage of public transport, the MMDA should consider lifting number coding for PUVs. This policy shift would immediately mobilize these existing and readily available but underutilized public transportation assets.”

Then, Move Metro Manila goes philosophical and long term. We have heard it all before, but let us hear it again.

Move Metro Manila thinks defining the problem as “traffic” implies that the objective is to get cars to go faster. The problem is to move people from point A to point B efficiently.

“To make cars go faster, roads are widened, but sidewalks are reduced. To make cars go faster, street-level pedestrian crossings are elevated or closed.”

Thus, Move Metro Manila asserts that “measures to help cars go faster can make matters worse for everyone.” Here is how Move Metro Manila defines the problem: “If public transport is insufficient or low quality and if streets are unsafe or difficult to walk or bike on, people will want to use private cars and motorcycles for their daily travel.”

That’s at the heart of today’s crisis: More and more private motor vehicles on limited road space… More than 500 cars are added daily to the vehicle population in Greater Manila… One would have to build 10 additional kilometers of road every day to keep congestion from worsening…”

And that’s the thing that countless urban planners and traffic experts have been pointing out: “More roads, flyovers and bridges for cars attract more cars and more traffic.”

In this sense, even the 10-lane expressway proposed by San Miguel over EDSA will simply attract more cars. But for now, the opening of the Stage 3 Skyway expansion by the end of 1Q20 is expected to divert a good amount of EDSA vehicle traffic.

Their proposed strategy: Make rail and bus—high quality, affordable and plentiful; Create safe networks for walking and biking; Introduce incentives to reduce the demand for daily car or motorcycle use.

Here is where the implementation snags. We have neglected mass public transport for decades and it takes time to construct MRTs and subways.

The best we can do for mass transport, with almost immediate effect, is as I stated earlier. Fix the bus system; let San Miguel run its BRT.

Creating walkable cities is a dream. Pasig has started it, but not nearly enough. It also takes time and money. Private establishments, particularly malls, should help LGUs set these up. Land developers should be required to include these in their plans.

As for charging congestion fees to discourage car use, we can’t do that until the MRT and the other mass transit options are in place.

We can dream. But we can also put so much pressure on decision makers in government to focus on immediately doable solutions. Henceforth, change official policy orientation to move people rather than cars.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is bchanco@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco