All we want for Christmas is smooth flow of traffic on Edsa

There was a time when we all loved Edsa as the symbol of freedom and democracy, the centerpiece of a people power revolution in 1986 that ousted a dictator.

 

But now, 30 years later, we hate it when we have to drive on Edsa  to get to our destinations.  For most motorists, Edsa has become a symbol of chaos, pollution and exasperation caused by crawling bumper-to-bumper traffic.

 

The traffic bottlenecks on Edsa have become more desperate with the onset of the hectic Christmas shopping season. It won’t improve when the holidays are over because everyone goes back to work or school and there will be an additional hundreds, if not thousands, of new cars on the road.

 

In fact, the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. (CAMPI) is confident that before the year ends, 370,000 new vehicles will have been sold, up from the 323,928 total in 2015, and this trend will continue to 400,000 in 2017.

 

It gets worse. The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) claims that almost one-third of new motor vehicles are registered in the National Capital Region (NCR) annually and this 30 percent will most likely ply Metro Manila streets, thereby aggravating traffic congestion and air pollution.

 

The MMDA has the numbers to prove it: 2,317,204 vehicles were registered in the NCR in 2015 while in the rest of the Philippines it was 8,706,607, representing 26.61 percent for the NCR and 73.39 percent for the rest of the country.

 

Higher car taxes

 

While the country’s rapid motorization enthuses the auto industry, it has also caused the Department of Finance to prepare a tax reform package that includes increasing the excise taxes on new car purchases “to discourage purchase of automobiles, which causes heavy traffic congestion and environmental pollution, and to slow human inputs to climate change.”

 

The traffic crawl seen daily on Edsa may have motivated the DoF’s plan to discourage the purchase of automobiles. Traffic congestion in Metro Manila, Cebu, Davao and other urban centers of the Philippines costs the country P2.4 billion daily, according to the recent Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) study.

 

It doesn’t help that Metro Manila’s population of 12.9 million balloons to around 15 million during the day, according to the 2015 census. This means that the average population density per square kilometer is 20,785 in Metro Manila, compared to the national average of only 337.

 

Going back to Edsa, the MMDA explains why it has become such a big problem.

 

Edsa’s limitations

 

First, Edsa has a maximum carrying capacity of 6,000 vehicles per hour per direction, but currently carries 6,800 vehicles per hour per direction.

 

Aside from Edsa’s limited carrying capacity, Metro Manila’s road network has hardly increased in the past years.

 

Ideally, 30 percent of the metropolis’ 636 square kilometers land area should be covered by roads, or 8,295.7 kilometers of roads.

 

Second: In 2014, the average annual daily traffic on Edsa was 360,417 vehicles. In 2015, it rose to 367,675 vehicles.

 

Another increase in average annual daily traffic is expected this year.

 

Third: Forty-six out of 85 provincial bus terminals in Metro Manila are located on Edsa: 27 at Edsa-Cubao and 19 at Edsa-Pasay, their loading and unloading of passengers impeding traffic flow.

 

Fourth: The existing Light Rail systems LRT 1, LRT 2 and MRT 3 exceed their carrying capacity on a daily basis.

 

MRT 3, which traverses Edsa from Taft to North Avenue, has a carrying capacity of 360,000 to 380,000 but its daily average ridership in 2014 was 560,000, or an excess of 180,000 passengers every day.

 

Daily overloading and substandard maintenance/repair contribute to wear and tear that results in frequent breakdowns.

 

Task Force Edsa

 

The Duterte administration has created the Inter-Agency Council for Traffic (i-ACT) consolidating the Departments of Transportation (DOTr), Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Philippine National Police-Highway Patrol Group (PNP-HPG), Land Transportation Office (LTO), Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB), and the MMDA under a unified chain of command led by DOTr Secretary Arthur Tugade with HPG Director Senior Superintendent Antonio Gardiola Jr. as chief traffic enforcer.

 

i-ACT promises to focus on the five E’s of traffic management: Engineering, Enforcement, Education, Environment and Economics.

 

“Task Force Edsa” is Phase 1 of the i-ACT’s Concept of Operations. Edsa from the Bonifacio Monument down to SM Mall of Asia will be delineated into 10 traffic sectors to better manage the traffic.

 

In addition, the MMDA, which was given full operational control over Edsa on Nov. 1, will clear 19 identified alternate routes to Edsa (the Mabuhay Lanes) of illegally parked cars, sidewalk vendors and other obstructions, and launch an anti-colorum operation on the arterial roads immediately connected to Edsa.

 

As of September 2016, the MMDA had installed 440 digital traffic signals in Metro Manila which has 1,000 road intersections.

 

Emergency powers

 

Phase 2 of the i-ACT will require congressional approval of emergency powers for the President as it will transfer all operations and control of all traffic enforcement personnel of the 17 Metro Manila local government units and local Philippine National Police to a proposed Single Traffic Authority as well as integrate all traffic laws, ordinances, department orders and memorandums.

 

To supplement this, Tugade has come up with a trillion-peso plan to address the shortfall in mass transportation infrastructure, which has also been noted by CAMPI president Rommel Gutierrez.

 

Tugade’s plan includes two Bus Rapid Transit lines (P44.2 billion), an integrated bus terminal in Parañaque and Taguig (P5.4 billion), jump-starting the proposed Single Traffic Authority (P3.3 billion), rail projects (93 percent or about a trillion pesos), allocations for ferry service on the Pasig River, and transferring the airports to Sangley, Cavite or Lipa, Batangas.

 

In the meantime, the MMDA has been interacting with motorists through status updates, comments and “tweets” to over one million followers in Facebook and Twitter.

 

MMDA has partnered with traffic management technology outfits such as Waze to provide real-time traffic information, using crowd source data and MMDA data from its traffic navigating and monitoring team at Metrobase.

 

Metrobase, by the way, is manned by 10 higher-ranking MMDA officials in four shifts during peak hours to oversee the operations of the Command and Control Center.

 

Online portal

 

Last week, MMDA officer-in-charge Tim Orbos launched “I Will Act,” an online portal where the public can report traffic violations such as illegally parked vehicles, overloaded public utility vehicles and extorting traffic enforcers.

 

Motorists who want to file a complaint should visit the MMDA’s official website (mmda.gov.ph), and fill out a complaint form and attach photos or videos.

 

Orbos said that the complaint will be forwarded to the concerned MMDA unit or i-ACT government agency where the complaint will be verified and the complainant notified within a week.

 

Orbos urged the public to give the MMDA a helping hand since the MMDA is undermanned. The MMDA has only 3,000 traffic enforcers whereas 7,000 enforcers are needed to man around 1,000 road intersections in Metro Manila.

 

Orbos recommends traffic reduction measures for the private sector such as carpooling, co-shuttle service, flexi-time and work from home.

 

Bottom line, all that we motorists want for Christmas is the smooth flow of traffic on Edsa.  Good news: it looks like the MMDA, Tugade and the whole i-ACT bunch are on the same page.