Thomas “Tim” Orbos is unfit to head the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority.
What does a sensible manager (and we are not talking about Orbos) do when he is tasked to solve the traffic problem in Metropolitan Manila? From a scientific perspective, traffic is a matter of hydraulics—to maintain continuous movement in a given circuit, obstacles must be eliminated. Applying this to the roadways, it’s a matter of finding out why traffic does not move at the pace it should.
In past essays under this column, it was pointed out that Orbos has not even bothered to check out the overlooked causes for the slow pace of traffic in Metropolitan Manila, Edsa in particular.
MMDA traffic enforcers allow slow-moving vehicles to use any lane they please. This slows down traffic behind them, and forces other vehicles to change lanes and risk traffic collisions.
The same can be said for motorcycles. When Francis Tolentino was MMDA head, he created motorcycle lanes on Edsa and Commonwealth Avenue which motorcycles had to use at all times under pain of getting a traffic ticket. Tolentino stopped the motorcycle lanes when he was no longer getting any publicity for it.
Today, motorcycles use any lane they please, thus causing traffic problems. Almost all motorcycle drivers do not obey traffic regulations—they create their own counterflows, and they convert pedestrian lanes at intersections as their waiting station before the light turns green.
Public utility vehicles, jeepneys specifically, are notorious for loading and unloading passengers in violation of traffic regulations. To block competition, many buses occupy more than one lane of Edsa. When buses stop to load passengers, they halt at a diagonal position to prevent other vehicles from getting ahead of them.
Pedicabs are another problem. At Edsa-Quezon Avenue intersection, particularly at the Quezon Avenue sideroad beside the SM mall, pedicabs dominate the area, traveling the one-way lane the wrong way. This causes vehicles to accumulate in the intersection.
Road use mismanagement is visible under the Edsa-Crame flyover. Vehicles coming from the south and headed towards Santolan Road must queue using the innermost lane of Edsa. The long line creates a bottleneck in the area. Those left-turning vehicles should access the underpass through the outermost lanes of Edsa so as to allow a smooth flow of traffic at the approach to the flyover.
Everyday, there is a bottleneck at the northbound half of Edsa across the street separating Poveda School from the Asian Development Bank complex. The cause is a building (yes, a building) constructed underneath the MRT railway. Although the building has no signs, it consists of three stories and has parking space for several vehicles and motorcycles. This building has eaten up the innermost lane of the northbound half of Edsa, forcing vehicles to a bottleneck.
The MMDA has not explained what this building is for. Meanwhile, taxpayers must pay for the maintenance of the building and its vast parking space.
Almost all of the sidewalks of major roads in Metropolitan Manila have been converted into parking spaces, thus forcing pedestrians to walk on the streets. As a result, the available road space is reduced, and a traffic problem ensues. With that summation, again, what should a sensible manager do when he is tasked to solve the traffic problem in Metropolitan Manila? He must get rid of what causes the traffic problem—before resorting to radical solutions.
Instead of getting rid of the foregoing causes of the traffic mess, Orbos resorted to the radical solution of banning vehicles from the metropolitan roads from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. one day each week, depending on the last digit of the vehicle’s license plates. For Orbos, that means less vehicles on the road and, therefore, a problem solved. Really?
The Orbos pseudo-solution will compel private vehicle owners to use the public transportation system at least once a week —something easier said than done. The public transportation system in the metropolis is woefully inadequate, inefficient, and unsafe. Even commuters who resort to private for-hire vehicles from Uber and Grab (and those masquerading as such) are vulnerable to arbitrary charges and physical harm. If that is not troublesome enough, imagine the plight of the disabled, the elderly, and the pregnant.
Evidently, forcing the people to resort to a public transportation system that is inadequate, inefficient, and unsafe, as Orbos wishes to, violates their constitutional right to travel. This right is underscored by the fact that motorists who register their vehicles are required to pay a road users’ tax. Why should a motorist pay a tax on a public road he is arbitrarily and unjustly prohibited from using in the first place?
The Orbos ban is also anti-poor. Rich persons will simply buy an addiitonal vehicle with a different license plate number, to circumvent the ban. The poor do not have that alternative.
When a public official like Orbos resorts to a radical measure without first resorting to other, less radical solutions, he commits a grave abuse of discretion. His measure may be voided in court, and he may be in for anti-graft raps.
Orbos cannot invoke the police power of the state to justify his new ban because the Supreme Court has ruled that the MMDA has no police power.
The blessings Orbos obtained from the city mayors of Metropolitan Manila to support his radical solution will not save his day. Local governments have no power to restrict the public use of national roads.
Government officials are expected to support Orbos’ radical ban, not because it is a sound measure, but because Orbos has exempted all government vehicles from the coverage of his ban. That means more road space for government officials and their vehicles. Taxpayers will just have to sacrifice and resort to the inadequate, inefficient, and unsafe public transportation system Orbos compels them to use. Aren’t government officials supposed to do the suffering for the taxpayers?
Expect additional discourse on the Orbos road use ban under this column next week.