Ending Metro Manila traffic woes

Can Metro Manila’s traffic woes ever disappear?” The National Academy of Science and Technology asked me that question at its 36th Annual Scientific Meeting on July 9. For harassed Metro Manila commuters, it is a question begging for an answer—yesterday.

Our traffic congestion has become “world-class” in a pejorative sense—although it did not appear on Forbes’ list of 10 most congested cities in the world. By its metric, an average of eight hours lost by every person in a year was extremely bad. To us, that would be heaven as each person lost an average of 300 hours yearly due to traffic congestion.

Where to start

 

When it comes to traffic, everybody becomes an ersatz “expert”—like the proverbial three blind men feeling different parts of an elephant. You can hear solutions, such as effective traffic enforcement, more traffic discipline, more roads, fewer buses and the phaseout of jeepneys. Not all suggestions are misplaced, for there is no magic wand to crack the traffic congestion nut.

Lessons from other cities have shown a multitude of congestion antidotes. These are either supply-side solutions, demand-side or both. Building more roads belongs to the first category. So does more Light Rail Transits (LRTs) or Metro Rail Transits (MRTs). On the other hand, limiting the number of vehicles on the road via the number-coding scheme or the truck ban belongs to the second.

 

Singapore example

Singapore is a good example of how traffic congestion can be tamed. Starting in the 1970s, the Lion City put into motion a comprehensive set of measures. In 1984, it did not have a single kilometer of rail transit when Manila’s LRT 1 opened for business.

To date, Singapore has 153 km of mass transit lines and 161 km of urban expressways. In addition, it reformed an antiquated bus transport system, adopted a road pricing scheme and imposed a tax that discouraged car ownership.

Peculiarities

But we cannot just import solutions as many foreign experts advise us to do. Adaptation to local conditions is a must. Metro Manila has its peculiarities and similarities with other urban centers. It does not have enough roads (14 percent of the country’s total) to accommodate 7.2 million motor vehicles (56 percent of the country’s).

Metro Manila has nearly two times more vehicles per km of road than Singapore. This is compounded by a population density that is even higher than that of Tokyo metropolis (19,126 persons per square kilometer; Tokyo, around 14,390, and Singapore, around 7,100).

The usual prescription is to build more roads—a task the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) likes to pursue, albeit with little success. It is hampered by a time-consuming process of buying right-of-way. One court decision in the 1980s made a vital artery, C3, incomplete to this day.

Several important flyovers are bogged down by a rabid “Nimby” (not-in-my-backyard) syndrome, if not by roadblocks from other government agencies. Increasing road capacity is no match for vehicle population growth. Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. expects its sales to go up by 24 percent this year. Besides, a new road begets only more traffic.

Optimize road use

The most basic solution is to optimize road utilization. Roads throughout the metropolis should be maximized—in terms of more vehicles per hour and more people per hour per lane. How can this be achieved?

Through traffic engineering and management measures— such as the signalization of intersections, road geometric improvements, imposition of no-parking zones, removal of on-road and on-sidewalk market stalls, and faithful compliance with designated loading and unloading points by buses and jeepneys.

These are mission impossible for the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and its 17 local government units, whose personnel scarcely know traffic rules.

Smart signaling

Smart signaling in which a network of traffic signals is controlled by a computer system is the most efficient method to road productivity. It does not get tired, unlike traffic cops. The more  intersections tied to the system are signalized, the more effective optimization becomes.

It was a program started by the DPWH in 1977 and progressively expanded. By the end of 2000, the system had expanded to cover 435 intersections. From 2003 to 2010, however, many intersections were designalized in favor of accident-prone U-turn schemes. Fortunately, it seems that the MMDA has finally awoken—if the return of signalization on C-5 is any indication.

Expand rail network

Moving a larger volume of people on our limited road network can be achieved by improving our entire public transport system. The different modes have to behave like a family member, complementing each other’s strengths rather than elbowing each other on the streets.

Expanding the urban rail transit network is a must. But our government has dillydallied on this challenge. The three LRT lines are managed poorly—with Line 3 on Edsa as the poster boy of flawed rail policies and mismanagement.

In 2012, rail grabbed a 14.2-percent market share, good but for the wrong reason: a decade-old stagnant fare regime, a popular policy that is actually antipoor. Investing more money in the railway system is like throwing money into the drain—unless the right policy regime is put in place.

Service collaboration

The free-for-all operations of buses and jeepneys aggravate traffic congestion. That arrangement needs to be replaced by a new business model of service collaboration. We started the journey of reforming the bus transport system in the late 1970s almost at the same time as Singapore did only to kill the program a few years after.

Bus productivity is very low— as can be seen along Edsa, where more than 3,500 buses operate half-full and achieve no more than three round trips a day.

The MMDA is trying its best to manage the buses on Edsa—via such schemes as the organized bus route and bus segregation— but these are putative and inutile efforts to solve the bus conundrum. Seoul reformed its bus system only in 2004. Now, Seoul is providing Manila a lesson instead of the other way around.

 

WWII relics

A bigger challenge are the jeepneys (about 60,000 relics of World War II) with their atomized operating structure. They account for 23 percent of daily trips. This Filipino innovation has wallowed in a low-performance equilibrium trap over the past six decades. No innovation.

Moving them into the 21st century will require bold action. The government should buy out and replace all of them with “green” transport—battery-powered, GPS-equipped (and linked to a central operations center) and side-entry, low-floor vehicles with adequate head room for passengers to stand up.

This can be financed by the Special Vehicle Pollution Control Fund, which has remained underspent for more than 10 years. It is a bargain compared with the P54-billion buyout plan for the MRT 3, which the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) has been talking about for more than three years. The MRT-3 buyout, if ever it happens, will not even add one train on Edsa nor lift its degraded service.

Living with trucks

Efficient movement of freights makes a city competitive. Yet, this vital aspect of the urban economy is often ignored. Trucks are often demonized and subjected to more constraints than any other mode.

The truck ban is one of the most enduring decongestion measure in Metro Manila, dating back to the 1970s. Trucks are provided a window of time during the day to be on the road, aside from banning them altogether on some streets. A designated truck route provided an open channel to the ports.

This modus vivendi got broken in February when the City of Manila enacted an ordinance that narrowed the window. Operations at the North and South Harbors got disrupted, wreaking havoc on the supply chain of many industries. There must be a better way to accommodate trucks on the streets of Metro Manila.

From bad to worse

We are not lacking in comprehensive plans. The country’s development partners have ensured that.

There was the World Bank-funded Metro Manila Transport Land Use and Development Planning Project (MMetroplan) of 1975, which brought about the LRT 1 and the now-forgotten busway on Magsaysay Boulevard. There was the Metro Manila Urban Transport Integrated Study (MMUTIS) in 1998, completed with generous funding from Japan. Unfortunately, not much of them saw the light of day.

As a consequence, traffic went from bad to worse, as shown in the infographic, which compares hourly traffic distribution in 2013 with that in 1997. The curve has flattened—meaning traffic congestion has become a daylong struggle. A recent survey put a number on what happened: Average journey time was 24-percent longer in 2012 than in 1997.

Dream plan

Recently crafted, again with assistance from Japan International Cooperation Agency, is the newest game plan in town: a Transport Roadmap for Greater Metro Manila. It is a “dream plan” to vanish traffic congestion completely by 2030.

Through computer simulation, the study was able to quantify the required supply: 137 km of new roads, another 78 km of urban expressways and more than 200 km of new rail transit lines (elevated and underground).

It also called for a radical restructuring of the current surface public transport system. It has gotten the nod of President Aquino, but will it survive in the next administration? Perhaps, netizens (see https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=CJ9F2Fnweuo) can keep the dream alive.

Price tag

Surprisingly, its price tag (about P2.6 trillion) can be afforded. The monkey wrench is the institutional apraxia—an inability to execute projects of the transport kind. For one, the country’s rail institutions are broken and in long need of fixing. Past and present DOTC officials prefer to take the easy way out by kicking the can down the road while Congress has sat on all railway reform bills for more than 10 years.

The second agency that needs to carry the battle against traffic congestion—the MMDA—is fixated on Edsa, perennially engaged in shadow boxing and unable to let go of a number-coding scheme that has lost its sting.

Private roads, carpool

The third agency—the DPWH— has shown better nimbleness but is slowed down by obstacles outside its control.

Traffic is a humongous problem that cannot be left to the government alone. Everybody must pitch in.

Opening select roads in gated subdivisions can be a big help. Up to 20 percent of the road supply in Metro Manila is private. If only a small part of these roads can become accessible to the public, even for a short window of time during the day, dramatic improvements can be felt by all.

On the demand side, carpooling can be done without waiting for Godot. The business districts of Makati, Ortigas and Bonifacio Global City can promote car-sharing within office towers, if not office blocks.

In these areas, their populations balloon by more than 50 percent during the day. Of course, it will help if they can live within and walk to their jobs—but condominiums closer to workplaces are beyond the means of ordinary workers.

On-campus dorms

School trips comprised more than 15 percent of daily trips. Large colleges and universities can and should encourage carpooling among their students, aside from building more on-campus dormitories. Some enterprising Filipinos launched in February 2012 an online platform for car-sharing that businesses and schools could use.

A black swan event, such as a massive earthquake, could finesse institutional rigidities. Rapid diffusion of new technologies, like autonomous cars and smart roads, may put an end to our traffic woes faster than our government agencies can act.

Icebreaker

To me, getting rid of the “jeepney mentality” is the icebreaker, the “one ring to rule them all.” The elevated U-turn slot on C-5 and Kalayaan Avenue is as much a symbol of this Jurassic mentality as the jeepney. Built by the MMDA, it is a structure that flagrantly violates standards of highway engineering.

In contrast, about 500 meters south, is a flyover that got built according to global standards. Had Henry Sy remained wedded to the jeepney mentality, SM would still be selling shoes today in Carriedo, Quiapo.

Yes, the traffic woes of Metro Manila can disappear—but only if we let go of the “heritage of smallness” that Nick Joaquin lamented about. Liberated from the jeepney mentality, a new capital to de-imperialize Metro Manila becomes a possibility.

That would be the mother of demand-side solutions to end our traffic miseries. -Rene S. Santiago

(Originally published September 14, 2014. Rene S. Santiago is president and chief executive officer of Bellwether Advisory Inc., a consulting firm focusing on infrastructure, and natural resource and risk management. He was involved in four studies on Metro Manila’s transport and traffic system: MMetroplan in 1975 when he was with the government, Metro Manila Urban Transport Strategy Planning Project in 1984 as a consultant, MMUTIS in 1997 and the 2013 Transport Road Map for Greater Metro Manila.

He obtained his Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering degree (cum laude) from the University of the Philippines in 1970 and master of engineering from the Asian Institute of Technology in 1973. He finished  special studies in transportation and logistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983 and urban management at the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank in 1975.)