An urban planner has expressed his opposition to San Miguel Corporation (SMC)’s P95-billion Pasig River Expressway (PAREX) project, saying that building more roads will not ease the country’s traffic woes.
In an interview with One News’ The Chiefs on Tuesday, urban planner and landscape architect Paulo Alcazaren said that “short-term decongestion will happen as you open more roads” but noted that induced demand will eventually revert the traffic situation into its normal state.
“Building more roads will not ease traffic unless we refocus our infrastructure building to public transport and non-motorized pedestrian rides,” Alcazaren said. “Adding more roads and in fact, building skyways, is a double whammy because it passes along or on top or beside the Pasig. It brings pollution to a corridor that didn’t have any air pollution and also compromises the integrity of the Pasig River itself in terms of its function as a floodway.”
“Traffic is not the problem,” Alcazaren added. “It’s the lack of a comprehensive mass transport system. So you must change the paradigm from one that looks at moving cars to one that moves people and to get away from that mindset that’s always catering to the cars.”
Prior to this, SMC president Ramon S. Ang defended the conglomerate’s big-ticket infrastructure project from various transport and environmental groups.
“It is not expressways that induce people to buy more cars. It is poor or insufficient public transportation, pollution, and even personal progress of people,” Ang said.
“Traffic and pollution will worsen if we do not build efficient, multi-purpose, future-ready infrastructure such as the PAREX,” he added.
SMC recently broke ground for its 19.37-kilometer PAREX project, which will link the eastern and western cities of Metro Manila.
Once operational, PAREX will serve as the east-west connection, linking up with Skyway 3 and South East Metro Manila Expressway, making virtually every major city in Metro Manila accessible via expressway.