August was off to an interesting start in the mobility sector thanks to the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG). Last week, the DILG held a meeting with the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA), Philippine National Police (PNP), and Metro Manila Council to discuss policies affecting the cities. One of the topics discussed was the never ending traffic.
In a light bulb moment, DILG Secretary Jonvic Remulla proposed a street parking ban from 5:00 am to 10:00pm while MMDA Chairman Romando Artes suggested a no-side street parking policy during the rush hours of 7:00-10:00am and 5:00-8:00pm. This will be applicable to inner or secondary and tertiary roads, while primary roads like EDSA and the assigned Mabuhay Lanes will remain strictly no-parking zones. The Metro Manila Council is expected to come up with a resolution by September 1. How this would play out will be interesting.
If you’ve tried using side streets from major roads like EDSA, you’ll notice a lot of these are one-way streets despite being 2-lane roads due to one side being used as street parking. It’s easy to see these as possible decongestion routes.
The LGUs have already tried their hand at this. Together with the barangays, they assigned designated parking spots to avoid double parking, and implemented one-way schemes to prevent complications in each street. That’s the local government being empathic towards the citizens. They know that public transportation is bad so the residents bought a car despite not having a garage because of the inhumane commuting conditions, and so they eased their restriction on street parking.
Some citizens have abused this empathy though. At a time when people should be at work, you’ll still see these streets filled with cars. Some even have tents and covers. I’ve been to a few houses where they have their own garage, but bought more cars since they can park outside. Most of the houses do not have a garage though since they were allocated and built at a time when commuting was still a breeze and a car wasn’t a necessity. Thus, street parking.
Still, it must be pointed out that we’re in this situation because of the government themselves.
For so long, they have ignored public transportation woes. The LRT Line 1 opened in the mid 80s, followed by the LRT Line 2 and MRT Line 3 in the late 90s. After that, the only significant PUV improvement we had was the FX – and that was a private effort (only regulated by the LTFRB later). The government let the Philippine National Railway system rot, while the MRT Line 7 that was initially approved in 2004 only started construction in 2017 and is still unfinished today. Meanwhile, the Metro Manila Subway is also encountering right of way issues that hamper its momentum.
The private sector provided a band-aid solution. The banks started providing low-downpayment schemes to consumers. Prior to this, you’ll need hundreds of thousands to take a car from a dealership. Now, you can get one for as low as PHP 25,000 (some even PHP 10,000) if the bank sees that your salary can afford the huge monthly payments. They also increased the loan term from 3-Years or 36 months, to 5-Years or 60-months.
Again, that was supposed to be a band-aid solution. Instead, the government coddled it. They started building roads, roads, and more roads. They kept spouting of “faster travel time from City A to City B” or in the case of expressways, “Province A to Metro Manila” or “Province A to Province B”. Take note, they are subtly referring to private travel, not public. A lot of roads within Metro Manila were also widened “to ease the congestion” not knowing it will only make things worse. More people bought a car simply because “there’s a new road that eased traffic” or that “this road is wider now” only to be another chokepoint a few years later. I studied in a school along Commonwealth Avenue and I saw how it grew from an 8-lane road (4 each way) to now that has up to 18 lanes at its widest. It was all done in the name of “EASING TRAFFIC CONGESTION” and look at it now every rush hour.
Of course, the bigger issue here is the dense population in Metro Manila that grew significantly over the years. This is emphasized annually during the Holy Week exodus. There are several factors at play here like the lack of opportunities in the provinces, the wage disparity a.k.a. provincial rate, and the concentration of work in select areas in Metro Manila.
The suggestion by the DILG gentleman is two decades late as we are already at a point of no return. Can one really tell the LGUs that they didn’t work hard enough, that more roads can be cleared despite them being residential? Where will they park their car when all the surrounding streets are also filled with houses and no nearby parking lots or buildings?
This is not a game of Tetris where units simply disappear if you make the right move. You’re basically re-arranging the same parking lot, with the same cars, with the limited number of slots. If you want less traffic, there should be less cars. It’s that simple, yet complicated.
The suggestions we need to ease traffic should come from DOTr, LTFRB, and MMDA. Unfortunately, MMDA already dropped the ball by suggesting the same side-street parking thought. They didn’t even think of strictly implementing zipper merges on the flyovers and underpass, which is the main source of traffic in EDSA.
Again, we need less cars on the road. The government’s transport agencies should come up with immediate ways to augment the public transportation system, especially the inter-city routes that affect many citizens. Inter-province transport should also be boosted to make working in Metro Manila from the nearby provinces easier. We have depended on big-ticket projects for too long that we’ve already forgotten how to be better on our own.
