(First of Two Parts)
Prominent government and private sector think tanks agreed at a recent high level transport forum held in Makati City that a component that could significantly ease road congestion in Metro Manila is to use rail to transport goods. Most of the participants concurred that much work needs to be done to improve the efficiency of the current state of the country’s transport infrastructure.
But some observers at the closed-door forum suggested a more real estate-driven solution to reduce the burden on the country’s transport systems: initiate decent rental housing in the city. This way, people could walk or take a short transit ride to work. The formula they proposed : “more affordable housing in the right places = less traffic congestion.”
“Most of the housing in our employment centers (the CBDs of Makati, BGC, Eastwood, Cubao, Ortigas, etc.) are currently expensive high-rise condos,” said one participant from the property sector who declined to be identified. “Most of the housing immediately adjacent are expensive, low-density single family housing. It is the poor and the middle class who could really save a lot of time and money if they could live near these work centers. But it is only the rich who can afford to live near where they work.”
Organized by ADR and Citizen Watch, the discussion centered on what the government, primarily the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), its attached agencies, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), and LRT/MRT operators, and real estate and property industry, had accomplished under the present administration to enhance public transport, and what else needs to be done.
“There is a need to fast track rehabilitation of MRT3 and increase its capacity buildup,” one participant said.
According to the participant, in order to be effective, the mass rail transit must be operated as a system, must be user- friendly, with high capacity and implement a ‘quick tap and go’ ticketing system.
One of the reasons why there country is suffering from the acute traffic condition is the method adopted by contractors in infrastructure build up.
“They [contractors] must use less disruptive structure that would not block the flow of traffic in major roads. When transport infra is improperly designed, it could wreak havoc and impaired long-term sustainability,” the participant from a private organization said.
He also envisions a ‘gentrified’ EDSA, with an efficient overhead mass transit to address the current traffic congestion in the metropolis. There is also a need to organize PUVs to operate as an integrated system rather than on ‘kanya-kanya’ system.
Public transport expert Rene Santiago commented that that the private sector must work together rather than wait for the government to do its job in improving the country’s transport infrastructure.
Santiago explained at the forum that moving a larger volume of people on Metro Manila’s limited road network can be achieved by improving the country’s entire public transport system. “The different modes have to behave like a family member, complementing each other’s strengths rather than elbowing each other on the streets,” he said.
“Expanding the urban rail transit network is a must,” he stressed. “But our government has dillydallied on this challenge. The three LRT lines are managed poorly—with Line 3 on Edsa as the poster boy of flawed rail policies and mismanagement.”
Free for all operations of PUV operators aggravate traffic
Santiago added that current “free-for-all” operations of buses and jeepneys aggravate traffic congestion. “This arrangement needs to be replaced by a new business model of service collaboration. We started the journey of reforming the bus transport system in the late 1970s almost at the same time as Singapore did only to kill the program a few years after,” he said.
He added that DOTC/MRT has so far spent P62 billion to improve the train lines but the train system continue to experience weekly disruption.
“Over the years, the capacity of our mass train system has declined that there is no wonder we are suffering from traffic gridlock,” Santiago said.
Another participant from the private sector said, due to the country’s inefficient mass transport system, the public were forced to purchase cars, resulting in a huge volume of cars on our roads.
“A large segment of our society has big disposable income to purchase cars; and with a very competitive car industry market that offers attractive buying rate to get a new car, the public resorted to getting their own cars rather than take the train, hence we have so much cars in EDSA today, the participant said.