MMDA allowing malls to hold weekday sales till Friday

The prospect of being stranded on the road is keeping holiday shoppers away from the malls, say retailers. Above, Edsa traffic in early December. JILSON SECKLER TIU

Starting today until Friday, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) is lifting its ban on weekday sales at shopping malls, which was earlier implemented to help ease holiday traffic especially on Edsa.

MMDA officer in charge and general manager Tim Orbos said the weeklong reprieve would give the commercial establishments the chance to somehow recover from the ban’s impact on their business after it was imposed last month.

“This is to give the malls some [leeway]. Anyway, they’ve been very cooperative,” Orbos told reporters in an interview.

But he clarified that the time restriction for the delivery of nonperishable products, from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., will remain in place this week.

During the agency’s radio program on Sunday, MMDA spokesperson Celine Pialago said the ban on weekday mall sales was one of the factors why holiday traffic this year was a lot better than last year’s, especially along Edsa where 16 malls are located.

Traffic survey

Based on the MMDA’s recent traffic survey, travel time from Roxas Boulevard to Monumento and vice versa was significantly cut down by almost half an hour. On Thursday, it took a vehicle 1 hour and 10 minutes to traverse the entire stretch of Edsa at a speed of 19.54 kilometers per hour.

Compared to Dec. 22 last year, the same vehicle took 1 hour and 39 minutes to traverse Edsa at 13.91 kph. Orbos said this was despite the fact that 357,529 vehicles used Edsa, or 11,499 more than last year’s.

Orbos attributed the improvement to the public’s “continuous support, understanding and cooperation,” to a host of traffic-reduction schemes they implemented, and to drivers who are slowly bringing back discipline in the roads. –Jovic Yee