Parañaque relaxes ‘coding’ scheme due to protests

The city government of Parañaque is allowing a seven-hour window period under the unified vehicle volume reduction (UVVR) scheme, more commonly known as number coding, which is being reintroduced to the city.

City Public Information Officer Mar Jimenez said City Hall is revising the scheme effective Oct. 1, after various groups, especially those representing senior citizens and persons with disabilities, sought exemptions.

“We need to make the scheme fair to all so we recommended a window period of 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.,” said Jimenez, referring to the period of the day when private vehicles can use city roads regardless of their plate numbers.

Mayor Edwin Olivarez earlier announced that Parañaque would adhere to a “no-window period” policy and also apply the truck ban—from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. daily—“to have an immediate solution [to] the tremendous traffic problem.”

“There is an increase in the volume of traffic in Parañaque for the past five years and it has become unacceptable,” Olivarez said in a statement.

He said they had been receiving hundreds of complaints every day from residents and workers about the heavy traffic on Dr. Arcadio Santos Avenue (formerly known as Sucat Road) due to the ongoing pipe-laying project of water utility firm Maynilad.

The five-kilometer stretch of Sucat has been dubbed “Little Edsa” by commuters due to heavy traffic in the area.

Jimenez said for the past years, the city had become a “catch basin” of vehicles exiting the capital through South Luzon Expressway since the city did not implement the number coding scheme, unlike neighboring Las Piñas and Muntinlupa.

Traffic enforcers would not issue tickets from Oct. 1 to 8 for noncompliant drivers and just inform them of the new traffic scheme, Jimenez added.

The four roads leading to Ninoy Aquino International Airport—Macapagal Avenue, Roxas Boulevard, Airport Road and MIA Road—which Parañaque shares with Pasay, were not included in the scheme. –Dexter Cabalza