Like It Is

The straight road
By Peter Wallace

We all complain of the traffic, and many solutions are offered. Most proposed solutions make sense but they are not so easy to do.

But there’s two that are easy.

First, keep intersections clear. If you can’t cross, don’t enter the intersection. A massive—and I mean massive— campaign of every traffic aide doing nothing but that for two weeks—a warning the first week, a fine the second should work. The beauty of it is that it costs nothing. A good PR campaign will help. A little courtesy doesn’t hurt anyone does it?

Second, take half the buses off the roads. They aren’t full now, so half will meet demand comfortably. And pay the drivers a fixed salary only, not mere commissions. I’m sure there’ve been enough questionable franchises granted to make this a legal possibility.

Half the buses off Edsa (and, yes, I do remember it as Highway 54. And often wondered why 54. There sure as hell aren’t 54 highways in the Philippines) and just think of the difference that would create.

We also need to re-look at “color coding”. Has it worked? Has anyone done a study? Or is it just a huge inconvenience to us all—I missed a most important meeting where I’m trying to get new investment into the country because I couldn’t borrow an alternative car quickly enough. Let’s do a test, cancel “color coding” for one or two weeks and see what difference it makes. I suspect not as much as you’d expect.

A better thing to do would be to give priority to cars with three or more people in them. In Sydney the main highways have an express lane at peak hours (near the kerb) on major thoroughfares. They are for public vehicles (buses, etc) and cars with three or more people. It’s called “pooling”, getting a few friends to ride together. In Philippine culture this is an easy one to do. Just think of the “tsismis” on the way.

And get jeepneys to stop by the kerb, not in the middle of the road, or with their bottoms sticking out. It’s not a bottom I wish to see.

The road system in Manila is inadequate. It’s inadequate in every old city. The explosion, even the invention of motor cars was never in the city planners’ minds (were there planners in those days? There are now, but developers in the Philippines don’t listen to them—see a little further on). You can’t widen the roads, you can’t bypass intersections with overpasses or tunnels except with great difficulty. But you can discipline.

If P-Noy can ban sirens and remove grinning political faces (in hard hats) from billboards, he can impose discipline on the streets. All it needs is political will, not political won’t. When does this country ever get that political will?

Now neither of these suggestions is particularly new, and that’s part of the problem. We’ve berated governments for years, for decades about this but nothing ever gets done. President Aquino wants to prove he’s a man of action, here’s two very simple, costless actions that need nothing more than an order to JUST DO IT. Can we also fix the surface of the roads so I can text without numerous mistakes? I can’t remember when any repair was last done. That too slows traffic dramatically. Just look at the turn-off from the South Luzon Expressway to EDSA. I’m surprised I’ve still got any springs on my car.

Who’s responsible for this? Is no one? Isn’t everyone? That is the problem: the buck gets passed. No one accepts responsibility so no one does it.