Metro Manila’s worst chokepoints up close and personal

Edsa-Shaw Boulevard southbound is one of the six major chokepoints on Edsa. ELOISA LOPEZ

For months, Edsa has been under intense scrutiny due to the massive traffic jams that it has created.

Due to our resilience, the Filipino motorist who plies Edsa has been accustomed to three-hour traffic jams—which I think is bad.

We deserve a far better managed national highway system, free from colorum buses, illegal PUV terminals, illegal sidewalk stalls and corrupt traffic enforcers.

But clearing up Edsa is just one part of the equation. There are other major roads that need massive fixing to help free up traffic.

Here’s a short list of some of the roads that I consider to be the worst-managed stretches and their corresponding intersections in Metro Manila. I’ll be doing a follow-up story, hopefully with the help of eagle-eyed, pro-active readers who are just as fed up encountering massive traffic jams in what should ultimately be a 15-30-minute drive.

1.) Shaw east- and westbound lanes. The Shaw eastbound lane is terrible. I get onto this stretch of road everyday from my home in Mandaluyong to my office in Ortigas CBD.

On a Sunday, it takes me all of seven minutes to get from my home to my parents’ house. On a weekday, especially payday Friday, it can take me an hour to clear Shaw Boulevard.

The major holdup is the intersection of Shaw Boulevard and San Miguel Avenue. On this side, I feel the Pasig City Police are not as effective in managing the flow of traffic compared to their Mandaluyong counterparts.

But Mandaluyong traffic police don’t get off cleanly. The intersection of Shaw Boulevard, Lee Street and Wack Wack Road is a mess as well on the westbound side.

I beg Mayors Maria Belen Eusebio of Pasig and Benjamin C. Abalos Jr.  of Mandaluyong to please pay special attention to these two intersections, which clog up the entire length of Shaw for kilometers on end. Of special mention is S&R Shaw; this one single establishment really messes up the flow of traffic.

I suggest that the entrance to S&R Shaw facing Laurel Street be used only for exits. Vehicles should enter the second entrance along Shaw Boulevard to help prevent the buildup of traffic as vehicles coming from the westbound lane of Shaw need to loop around Lee Street and exit Laurel Street to swerve in and enter S&R.

2.) Ortigas Avenue. There are two critical chokepoints on Ortigas Avenue: the La Salle Green Hills (LSGH) side, which ultimately constricts the five lanes of Ortigas Avenue to a single moving lane, and at the intersection of Ortigas Avenue and Boni Serrano (formerly Santolan) Road.

LSGH is one of Metro Manila’s premier private schools. But it is a paradigm of viciousness, stupidity, crab mentality and indifference,  if you see how motorists behave when picking up their charges from school upon dismissal.

It is ultimately impossible for the LSGH management to fix this because a lot depends on the motorists who pick up the school kids.

How to fix it? I don’t know at this point, but suffice to say, it needs fixing.

The second chokepoint is the Ortigas-Boni Serrano crossing. From five lanes, the majority of vehicles turn into two-lane roads, going further westward onto New Manila, or turning left to San Juan.

The commercial establishments just past this intersection are the major causes of traffic as vehicles double-park and wait for parking. The LGU should monitor this situation to help speed up and improve traffic flow.

Dear establishments (Chinese food establishments, need I say more?), please bear in mind that your patrons are causing traffic.

The C5 Road and the elevated U-turns LEO M. SABANGAN II

3.) C-5 Road/CP Garcia. C-5 is another oddly traffic-riddled stretch of road.

On the southbound lane, the major chokepoint is the Pasig-Kalayaan flyover, where five lanes try to squeeze themselves into two lanes as they enter the flyover.

This chokepoint pushes traffic all the way Eastwood where motorists can crawl through this stretch for as much as two hours on a very bad day.

Once past this chokepoint, traffic flows freely until it hits the bridge over the Commando Link Road, just past McKinley Hills in Bonifacio Global City, due to the sheer number of vehicles taking the service road and turning left to Taguig or making a U-turn.

If the Taguig city government fixed the roads and cleared up all the illegally parked vehicles and illegal stalls on this very tight but crucial road, traffic would flow much more freely. As it is, of the five southbound lanes of C-5 passing here, only two become passable during the rush hour as the other three lanes are stacked with motorists trying to squeeze their way to the leftmost to enter the service road. We need the Philippine National Police-Highway Patrol Group here as well.

Coming back into Pasig City, the chokepoint is caused by the Pasig-Kalayaan flyover, where vehicles can take the service road to get to Pasig City proper, or go further down before exiting the flyover and onto Bagong Ilog, Valle Verde and Eastwood, Quezon City.

Cars get lost on the merging lanes here, so we need PNP-HPG to manage this section to keep vehicles in line and observing lane discipline.

4.) McKinley Road.  Even Manila’s elite aren’t spared from traffic. Robert Coyiuto III, managing director of Porsche Philippines and Lamborghini Philippines, says that McKinley Road, once a quiet thoroughfare, isn’t spared from intense traffic during rush hour as it has become a major artery to and from Edsa to BGC.

The major chokepoint is the entrance to BGC. The BGC security needs to reassess the flow of traffic, giving perhaps triple the time for incoming cars to get into BGC to help speed up traffic along McKinley Road.

5.) Estrella Street. Edbert Tiu, big boss at Waido, distributors for Blaupunkt, Sonax, PIAA and CTEK car chargers, had two suggestions:

Estrella Street, entering from Edsa and going back to Barangka in Mandaluyong, is a crucial artery that can truly help decongest Edsa. Unfortunately, it’s narrow, and once down the bridge, it’s a tight four-way intersection.

While the Mandaluyong side is managed as well as it can be (I pass there often enough), it’s the Estrella stretch along Rockwell that needs sorting out. The private security force of Rockwell needs the support of the Makati City Mapsa traffic enforcers and the PNP to help keep this stretch of road moving freely.

6.) Makati Avenue. This is another stretch of road Tiu mentioned that needs far better policing. The chokepoint on the northbound lane is the entry to the bridge, which is at the intersection of JP Rizal and Makati Avenue.

Once past the bridge that crosses Pasig River, the next major chokepoint is the Mandaluyong Circle itself, which used to be a major throughfare but is now nearly impassable—and completely impassable once the moderate rain starts falling, as the areas becomes knee-deep in flood.

7.) Commerce  Avenue. From the south, Danny Isla, president of Lexus Manila Inc., states that Commerce  Avenue is still heavily congested. The opening of the MCX Toll Road helped alleviate the traffic along Commerce  Avenue, but during rush hour, the traffic rivals that of downtown Manila.

While this area is private and utilizes its own security force, the private sector needs to work closely with the local government and the PNP to help improve traffic along this stretch of road.

8) Southbound Edsa-Ortigas flyover. Special mention is the southbound lane of Edsa-Ortigas entering Ortigas CBD. This particular lane gets clogged up due to vehicles coming down the flyover and turning to F. Ortigas Road to go to Robinson’s Galleria, San Miguel  Avenue and the elite private school St. Pedro Poveda College.

The four lanes of the eastbound lane of Ortigas Avenue get clogged up, and only a single lane becomes passable as vehicles squeeze and merge all the way from the leftmost lane to the rightmost lane.

Perhaps we should lengthen dividers from the flyover to cover the stretch all the way until the Shell station, beside the old Ortigas Building, to prevent this chokepoint.

Once this is clogged up, traffic can get backed up all the way to Cubao. PNP-HPG, please take note of this.

These are just eight chokepoints I’ve identified. I would very much like to hear from you readers out there, so we can elaborate on these major chokepoints aside from Edsa.

Remember, if we can help unclog the secondary but equally important arteries of Metro Manila, we also help unclog traffic as a whole, and free up Edsa.