Give lawmakers a year to relieve your EDSA woes.
A roadmap aimed to resolve the issue of congestion on EDSA is being eyed by the chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Transportation.
In a report by The STAR, Samar Rep. Edgar Mary Sarmiento said he has started informal discussions with various government officials and private sector leaders to get the ball rolling on a series of hearings focusing on how to resolve the worsening traffic situation along Metro Manila’s busiest thoroughfare.
“Speaker Cayetano wants our traffic problem on EDSA solved within one year. EDSA’s traffic problem is causing too much economic losses for the government and for our people on a daily basis,” Sarmiento said.
He explained that traffic congestion will always inconvenience the riding public “unless we do something about (it).”
The pronouncement came after President Duterte’s order to clear roads of obstructions within 60 days.
Sarmiento said that the answer to solving the traffic on EDSA is to lessen the number of vehicles plying the road.
He added that a collective effort from the executive, legislative, judiciary, and the private sectors needed in order to achieve this goal.
The lawmaker furthered that there are too many buses on EDSA that most of the time are half-empty, making them inefficient in the use of road space.
Because of this, Sarmiento said that proposals to consolidate all bus operations in Metro Manila should be seriously considered in order to begin a “synchronised dispatch system.” – With Jess Diaz/STAR