Traffic jams spoil holiday travel to North

Traffic crawled to the Dau toll plaza along the North Luzon Expressway in Mabalacat City, Pampanga province, on Dec. 26, part of a long holiday weekend. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines—Motorists hoping to escape the traffic of Metro Manila by heading North likely had their hopes dashed. The excitement accorded this year’s holiday trip to Baguio and many areas of Northern Luzon has been dampened by massive traffic jams that start from the expressways to the summer capital.

Traffic jams clogged the route up and within Baguio three days before Christmas, but authorities said it worsened during the long holiday weekend and could be heavier still come Jan. 1, New Year’s Day.

Many vehicles took advantage of newly opened portions of the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEx) up to Urdaneta City in Pangasinan province.

TPLEx is designed to cut travel time from Manila to Baguio to at least four hours.

But at 8 a.m. on Saturday, long lines of vehicles crawled through the northbound lanes of the toll gates in the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx) and in the Rosales exit of TPLEx in Pangasinan.

By 9 a.m., northbound vehicles on Manila North Road (MNR) in Rosales and nearby Sison town were also not moving.

“There are simply a lot of vehicles and we are overwhelmed,” said Chief Insp. Ryan Manongdo, police chief of Pozorrubio town in Pangasinan.

Traffic in the area was also heavy on Friday, with northbound vehicles occupying three lanes of the newly-widened MNR from Binalonan town in Pangasinan to Rosario town in La Union province.

“We were prepared for the coming of more vehicles but we did not expect that it was that many,” Manongdo said.

Aside from regular policemen, barangay police volunteers were also deployed to direct traffic and man intersections, said Senior Insp. Rommel Centeno, Sison police chief.

Manongdo said northbound traffic may have easily built up in the three Pangasinan towns because of the newly-opened TPLEx exit in Barangay Anonas in Urdaneta, which bypass the town centers of Villasis and Urdaneta.

Toll fees from Carmen to Urdaneta are still free until Jan. 20 “so the motorists may have wanted to avail of this,” said Manongdo.

Centeno said that despite the four-lane road in Sison, traffic built up because the long bridge connecting Sison to Rosario had only two lanes.

The post-Christmas calvary to Baguio and other provinces started early on Dec. 26 along the stretch of the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx) leading to the Dau toll plaza in Mabalacat City in Pampanga.

Northbound vehicles started slowing down as they approached the Angeles City exit of the NLEx. The pileup stretched at least 5 km from the Dau toll plaza.

Traffic was light as the vehicles passed through the toll plaza but motorists encountered several choke points as they approached the toll plazas of SCTEx and TPLEx.

The major choke points were the toll plazas of TPLEx in Tarlac City and in Barangay Carmen in Rosales. The queue to these toll plazas extended up to at least 2 km where vehicles at the rear of the line reached the teller’s booth after almost an hour.

After the expressways came the nightmare for motorists. The stretch from Binalonan to Rosario in La Union was a virtual parking lot starting at 4 p.m. as vehicles inched through the highway.

Making the situation worse were road works on the highway’s shoulders and counter-flowing vehicles that blocked the southbound lane.

The 11-km stretch from Sison to a traveler’s pit stop in Rosario near the junction to Kennon Road, took at least five hours. The normal travel time on that stretch of the highway is 10 minutes.

Travelers, many of them families on their way to Baguio for the long holiday break, could not do anything but endure hunger and discomfort.

Many eateries along the highway were full while others had to knock on doors of houses by the roadside to plead with the owners that they be allowed to use their bathrooms.

A family from Tarlac province, for instance, started their trip to Baguio at 4 p.m. and reached the pit stop in Rosario at past 11 p.m. That trip, about 100 km, would have taken the family only more than an hour.

The three gasoline stations in Rosario near the Kennon Road junction had turned into parking lots and rest areas for weary travelers.

Traffic flow on Kennon Road, going to Baguio City, was fast moving at past 12 a.m. Saturday.

But Baguio traffic was just as bad.

Traffic has been slow for motorists going up or down Baguio’s three major arteries—Kennon Road, Marcos Highway and Naguilian Road—at peak travel hours of the day since the third week of December, according to the Baguio police.

Motorists have slowed down to a crawl along main roads and alternate roads leading to the city’s popular destinations like the Mines View Park, the presidential Mansion and Lourdes Grotto since Dec. 24, Christmas Eve. Gabriel Cardinoza, with reports from Robert Jaworksi Abaño, Inquirer Northern Luzon