This week, a massive traffic jam on Edsa—Metro Manila’s main highway—did more than inconvenience commuters. It angered many more for highlighting the divide between the rich and the poor, and for showcasing the whimsical policymaking of those tasked to make things better in the first place.
Aside from the six traffic incidents recorded between 4 a.m. and 3 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 6, the Metro Manila Development Authority also enforced a rule that confined all buses—city or provincial—to within Edsa’s yellow (outermost) lane. This created queues that blocked private vehicles coming from Edsa’s side streets, making it difficult for them to reach the highway’s inner lanes and flyovers.
The gridlock was so bad that bus passengers spent hours on the road; some took to walking to reach their destinations. They also vented their anger on social media, lambasting the MMDA for coming up with such an insensitive traffic scheme.
The inclement weather did not make the commute any easier for passengers, either.
Images of the gridlock and of desperate passengers waiting for a ride remind us that Metro Manila, while supposed to be a vibrant metropolis full of opportunities, greatly immobilizes its citizens with its oppressive, even dehumanizing, public transport system.
The Metro Rail Transit, for instance, should have helped ease congestion on Edsa. Unfortunately its ill maintenance and the resulting delays and long queues on stations have hardly given commuters a viable option to get to their destinations.
The proposed ban on provincial buses, which would force commuters to alight in exit points in the north or south to transfer to city buses, is also under scrutiny. A Senate committee hearing next week will attempt to shed light on the benefits and costs of the scheme. Many groups claim there was hardly any consultation done in drafting the proposal.
Meanwhile, Malacañang has asked commuters to be “more patient” as the MMDA sorts through the menace of Metro Manila traffic.
“I’m sure the MMDA is doing enough,” said Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo.
The MMDA’s head of traffic, Col. Bong Nebrija, defended his agency in a television interview. “We’re just doing our job.”
A better way of doing the job might be to look at the numbers and behavioral patterns causing the perennial gridlock on Edsa, instead of making commuters guinea pigs for their policy experiments. In 2017, more that 360,000 vehicles on Edsa were private vehicles. Some 12,000 were city buses while 3,300 were provincial buses. Drivers of private vehicles, no doubt, behave differently from drivers of city or provincial buses.
Who, then, has the responsibility of getting these motorists to conduct themselves better on the road?
Who can figure out sound solutions that will last longer than anybody’s term?
In this part of the world, ownership of a vehicle is a testament to personal success and upward mobility. Given the sorry state of public transport, we can’t blame people for wanting to spend their time on the road in comfort and privacy.
We should remember, however, that this is not the ideal situation. The former mayor of Bogota, Colombia once said that a truly developed country is not where the poor have cars; it is where the rich use public transportation. If we use this yardstick, then we are a long way from development, indeed.
