Traffic plan to open village roads worries wealthy residents

TRAFFIC jam along Edsa File photo

RESIDENTS of Metro Manila’s upscale residential villages where most of the country’s most powerful families reside are worried because of the traffic situation.

No, they are not worried about getting stuck in traffic, per se. But they are very worried by the implications of the hellish traffic situation in the metropolis on the peace and quiet of their gated communities. That, combined with the emergency powers that Congress looks set to grant the Duterte administration to solve the traffic crisis, that is.

Biz Buzz learned that influential members of the homeowners associations of rich subdivisions like Forbes Park and Dasmariñas Village in Makati City had been having regular meetings to plan a unified response to the growing clamor to open private village streets to non-residents vehicular traffic.

Forbes and “Dasma” are particularly vulnerable to such move to open up village streets because both exclusive enclaves are situated between the booming cities of Makati and Taguig which, at present, are connected by heavily congested roads like McKinley, Kalayaan or Chino Roces Ave.

Biz Buzz learned that the de buena familia residents were horrified by the prospect of having private (and perhaps even public) vehicles clog their village roads, damaging their well manicured sidewalks and polluting their pristine village air.

Their main defense to fend off this idea of opening up their roads is that doing so will offer little relief to outside motorists since it will only result in cars getting to the traffic bottlenecks in Taguig and Makati faster. Any time savings will be marginal.

But if that doesn’t work, these wealthy homeowners have another ace up their sleeve. If push comes to shove, they believe they stand on firm legal footing to reject any government push to open up their village roads. That’s because, in the case of Forbes and Dasma, the roads are not public roads but are private property whose titles are owned by Ayala Land. Smart. Daxim L. Lucas