Someone at the Department of Transportation and Communications must be earning loads of money just cooking up all these upid-stay schemes and experiments to solve the traffic problem in Metro Manila, the latest of which is the Holiday Bus Express. This plan is not really new because as early as February, the DoTC, the Metro Manila Development Authority and the Land Franchising Regulatory Board have been announcing the rollout of 50 express buses that will make life easier for those commuting to Makati via EDSA because these buses will only stop twice—at the designated pickup point and the destination.
It’s supposed to cut the number of vehicles plying EDSA because the grand plan is to convince vehicle owners to ditch their cars and ride on the brand new buses—for as much as P80 which is almost twice the fare for an air con bus traveling the same distance. Fine, the difference is that the express buses will not make all those numerous stops that regular buses make, but whoever concocted this scheme failed to consider that the fare rate is onerous for just a short stretch (like from North Avenue to Ayala) so this will already limit the number of passengers willing to shell out twice that amount. Thrown in additional expenses for the fare going to the terminal and then back home (for those without cars), plus and parking fee for car owners who decide to leave their cars in the malls that serve as express bus terminals, and we’re talking about P300.
So if you are a car owner, why go through all that trouble of parking your car at the mall just so you could take a bus (By the way, the buses have 30 minute intervals for dispatch so if you are in a hurry, time your arrival at the terminal to avoid wasting time waiting for the next bus) that would drop you off somewhere in Ayala, which would require you to walk to your office or wherever it is you want to go? If it rains, well, that’s another story…
The “Apec” lane—that one segregated by the orange plastic dividers that cost millions—has been dedicated for these special buses—which means the rest of the vehicles will contend with even worse traffic because they will all have to squeeze their cars in the much reduced road space that in turn creates bottlenecks. Smart, really smart.
The thing is, too many solutions are being proposed to ease the traffic congestion in Metro Manila. If our memory serves us right, there was one from Atty. Ariel Inton—a road use rationalization proposal for EDSA—that’s supposed to answer the traffic congestions and limit the high volume of vehicles traversing it during morning rush hour. Inton is suggesting several options like one more day of coding, wherein only car plates ending in 1, 2, 3, 4 are allowed on Monday, 3, 4, 5, 6 on Tuesday, 5,6, 7, 8 on Wednesday—you get the drift. Option B just reverses the order with public and private vehicles only allowed to ply EDSA twice a week. And his third option: follow the existing number coding scheme but only cars with four passengers will be allowed to pass through EDSA. (Tough luck if you are only a family of three and you want to go to SM Mega Mall—you will have to look for an extra passenger like your disagreeable in-law for example.) Your thoughts on this? We thought so.
To be fair though, Inton only proposes a two- to three-hour implementation for all the options he presented, specifically during morning rush hour, with the intention being to give priority to bus commuters. Oh, well. We can all come up with the most inane and insane proposals but the best solution would be to have an efficient mass transport system—something that the MRT and LRT should be able to help us achieve—if only this administration has not allowed these rail systems to deteriorate.
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