To be able to solve the traffic woes in Metro Manila, especially along the stretch of Epifanio delos Santos Avenue, the organized bus route (OBR) system must be revived, according to Marikina City Rep. Bayani Fernando, a former Metropolitan Manila Development Authority chairman.
Interviewed on television, Fernando said he still considers the OBR project as a solution to end the EDSA traffic.
“I believe that what I started then when I was then the chairman… and when I left (the system there), is still the solution when it comes to EDSA (gridlock). That is the OBR,” he said.
“You could still a yellow lane (of the OBR), but some of these lanes were already erased in some parts of (EDSA). That is how the system was neglect. Let us revive it,” he added.
In 2003, the MMDA under Fernando’s leadership passed MMDA Resolution No. 03-28 to implement the OBR scheme “as one of the possible solutions to efficiently manage the flow of buses along EDSA by controlling the headways between buses dispatched at terminals and by strictly enforcing rules on the use of public utility vehicle lanes and loading and unloading areas.”
Fernando said traffic solutions to EDSA must be permanent and would stay no matter who the sitting president or the transport secretary is.
“A bus that is not full of passengers must not be dispatched at the terminal. The number of bus must equate the number of the passengers,” he said.
While Caloocan City Rep. Edgar Erice wanted to ban around 300,000 private vehicles on EDSA from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. during weekdays, Samar Rep. Edgar Mary Sarmiento proposed to convert the innermost lanes of EDSA into express bus lanes that could be accessible to the stations of the Metro Rail Transit 3.
The former traffic czar of the National Capital Region welcomed any proposals that could help fix the perennial traffic on EDSA.
“Do the proposal through a simulator to see what would happen to traffic if it is applied. That’s what we do when I still the chairman,” Fernando said.
“You must first make a simulation. That would be the first experiment. Just see. You can still use that (approach),” he noted.
He said EDSA must have fences to fend off bus drivers wanting to load or unload passengers at any place they would want to.
“The fence must be devoted to the passengers so that they would not get out of the third lane so as not to tempt provincial buses to pick up commuters,” he added.