ALL public utility vehicles plying Epifanio de los Santos Avenue will be exempted from the number coding under the modified odd-even scheme being proposed by the Metro Manila Development Authority.
More than two million private vehicles will be affected if the government enforces the new plan, dubbed “Windows 2,” but the Metro Manila Council said it will only give the program a go signal if the MMDA succeeds in clearing secondary Metro roads of illegally parked vehicles and other road obstructions.
The new odd-even scheme stated that private cars, aside from complying with number coding, would also be banned for three two-hour intervals along Edsa from Monday to Friday.
Cars with registration plates ending in odd numbers (1, 3, 5, 7 and 9) will be banned on Edsa from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. while those with plates ending in even numbers (0, 2, 4, 6 and 8) can’t use the highway from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
“We will not implement this unless we are ready to do so. We are just putting it on the table for discussion,” said MMDA acting chairman Thomas Orbos who believed the scheme would cut vehicular traffic on Edsa by half and increase travel speed from the present 19 kilometers per hour to up to 40 kph.
Also under the proposal, PUVs like jeepneys, provincial and city buses plying Edsa will be exempted from the coding scheme to ensure that the public will have various transport options once the modified odd-even traffic scheme is enforced.
“If the majority speaks, we are willing to listen, but we have to know what we have to accept. If they don’t like it, fine but we need to do our part. If it will be implemented today, that will be chaos that is why we’re giving enough time for this to be discussed and for this to be internalized accepted or not accepted,” Orbos said
“If we make a mistake here, forgive us because we are trying and this is part of what we need to do,” he added.
Senator Ralph Recto on Wednesday urged the MMDA to study carefully if the new proposal to decongest Edsa traffic would work.
“It better run tabletop simulations and calculations if it could indeed be the relief, no matter temporarily, we have all been looking for. It should employ algorithms and Big Data in gauging its feasibility. We need to see science behind the proposal,” Recto said.
He added “the motoring public is tired of being lurched from one experiment to another.”
Recto agreed with the Metro Manila mayors in saying that to increase road capacity, it is better for the MMDA to rid Mabuhay Lanes and other roads of obstructions, beginning with junk on permanent display.