THE Metro Manila Development Authority on Monday welcomed the proposed “one-way-all-the-way” traffic scheme, similar to what is being used in New York City, to solve the worsening traffic situation in the metropolis.
But MMDA assistant general manager for planning Jose Arturo Garcia Jr. said the agency could not decide on the matter.
“We will endorse the proposal to the Metro Manila Council, the governing and policy-making body of MMDA. It is the MMC, whose members are Metro Manila mayors, that will decide,” said Garcia.
He added all the traffic scheme proposals made by lawmakers and local government units would be discussed by the MMDA and the MMC in close coordination with the Inter-Agency Council on Traffic (i-ACT) on Oct. 10.
“All these proposals are being studied carefully, but the MMDA cannot decide on that. We will present it to the MMC,” said Garcia.
Meanwhile, men from the Police-Highway Patrol Group have returned to assist in managing traffic on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, particularly from P. Tuason to Connecticut, to ease road congestion in the area this Christmas season.
The Metro Manila Development Authority-Public Information Office announced this on Monday after the i-ACT agreed with the proposal of MMDA asking for additional personnel to man traffic in the area as the holiday season draws near.
“In line with the initiative to address traffic woes in the metropolis, the i-ACT started deploying personnel from the Philippine National Police’s Highway Patrol Group Monday in Edsa from P. Tuazon to Connecticut/White Plains in Quezon City,” the MMDA-PIO stated in its advisory.
i-ACT is an inter-agency body composed of personnel from the Department of Transportation, MMDA, PNP-HPG, Land Transportation Office, and Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board tasked to address traffic congestion in the metropolis and nearby provinces of Rizal, Cavite and Bulacan.
MMDA general manager and concurrent i-ACT chief Thomas Orbos said the deployment of HPG men headed by its commander Chief Supt. Arnel Escobal was approved in close coordination with DoTr and MMDA.
He added the move aimed to augment the existing MMDA traffic personnel in manning the flow of traffic in the area during the peak buying “ber months”—reference to the months of September, October, November and December.
Orbos said more than 20 HPG personnel were already deployed in the area, while 40 additional personnel were positioned in other identified chokepoints in Edsa.
“We have to make sure traffic is moving in Edsa,” Orbos said.
Samar Rep. Edgar Mary Sarmiento has asked the MMDA and other government traffic managers to make three major road arteries in Metro Manila into full one-way highways.
“Our traffic situation is a multi-dimensional problem that has evolved and accrued through the years. While other countries in the region opted for tenement buildings and railway systems, we followed the American model of bungalows and highways. So we cannot just blame one cause alone, like lack of discipline among drivers or the presence of colorum PUVs plying our roads,” Sarmiento, an engineer, said.
He explained that Edsa was built in the 1940s when the population in Metro Manila was only 1.7 million.
“Seventy-seven years later, the most needed infrastructure to support a rapidly growing metropolis and population—now totaling around 13 million in the National Capital Region—were never proportionately built for one reason or another,” Sarmiento said.
Since Edsa can no longer be widened, Sarmiento said it should be turned into a purely northbound superhighway from Caloocan to Pasay City with bi-directional service roads on its opposite sides that would be for the exclusive use of the Bus Rapid Transit System.
To accommodate northbound vehicles coming from Pasay City, Parañaque and Cavite, Sarmiento proposed that portions of Roxas Boulevard passing through Circumferential Road 3 (C-3 Road) and Circumferential Road 4 (C-4 Road) would also be turned into a one-way highway.
On the other hand, motorists coming from Muntinlupa and Laguna going northbound to Quezon City, Bulacan and Pampanga, can use the Circumferential Road -5 (C-5 Road), which will be also turned purely as a northbound expressway.
Four months ago, the MMDA proposed the implementation a three-digit number coding scheme to further reduce the number of vehicles on the roads and improve the flow of traffic in the metropolis but the MMC rejected it.
The MMC composed of 17 mayors in the NCR, instead, suggested that the MMDA should intensify the road clearing operations against illegally parked vehicle, basketball courts, sidewalk vendors and other obstructions on both major and secondary roads.
MMDA chairman Danilo Lim said there was need for the government to reduce the increasing number of vehicles in NCR.
He added the number of registered vehicles in the metropolis alone already reached from 2.6 to 2.7 million, more than double the maximum carrying capacity of the road.