A test drive conducted by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) showed that traveling from Makati to Cubao would only take more than six minutes -– on a Sunday morning.
In a Facebook video, MMDA traffic czar Edison Nebrija performed a “base run” to determine if President Duterte’s five-minute travel time between Cubao and Makati is feasible.
“This is my base run that I did on Sunday (June 30). This is to show what vehicle volume situation we want to achieve to comply with the five-minute (Cubao)-Makati,” Nebrija said.
The test drive began at the Guadalupe bridge in Makati while maintaining the 60kph speed limit on the northbound lane of EDSA.
While crusing amid light traffic, Nebrija, who was chauffeured, breached the five-minute mark at Gate 3 of Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City and later arrived at their endpoint – the P. Tuazon tunnel with a time of six minutes and 10 seconds.
Nebrija said that the volume of vehicles traversing EDSA have to be reduced in order to achieve a smooth traffic flow.
“As you could see, the only way to achieve this if for us to reduce volume on Edsa to this kind of situation on a Sunday. It’s like making the situation of EDSA like a Sunday every day,” Nebrija said.
“As of June 30, it’s 6:10 Makati-Cubao without any intervention or policy at hand. So now we will start working on reducing this travel time possibly with engineering intervention and implement new policies to reduce volume,” Nebrija said.
Nebrija earlier said that Duterte’s statement is “mathematically impossible,” saying that it’s more of a “pronouncement of hope.”
An earlier similar simulation conducted by the Highway Patrol Group at around 1 a.m. took four minutes and 58 seconds at 70kph, which is beyond the 60kph speed limit on EDSA.
Duterte recently said that travel time between Cubao and Makati will be cut down to five minutes by the end of the year.
“You don’t have to worry about traffic. Travel time from Cubao to Makati could be reduced to five minutes by December. You just wait,” Duterte had said.
Meanwhile, Deparment of Public Works and Highways Secretary Mark Villar said that state of traffic along EDSA will return to “acceptable” levels by the end of President Duterte’s term in 2022