Traffic? Truly!

In our daily life of being a student in Makati, We have to wake up at 5am and leave our house at 6am just to make it to our 8am class. That is considering all the traffic and other unexpected circumstances we might encounter. Proven and tested by our experience, we could literally finish reviewing one or two subjects in our travel time going to school.

image by Richard Reyes via inquirer.net

Traveling in the Philippines, in terms of moving to places with private vehicles and public transportation truly stresses us enough. Imagine, a 30 minute ride can be stretched to an hour or two travel time because of the traffic and other factors that contribute to the lowering of the quality of our road systems. One of the biggest contributing factors of traffic congestion in the Philippines is the big number of vehicles. The tendency is that people assume that it would be more convenient for them to have their own vehicles for the reason of quick and easy traveling. In an article published by PhilKotse, written by Cesar Miguel, they stated that there are more cars now than ever before. Meaning, the number of cars outstrips the public transportations -- buses, jeepneys, motorcycles, and etc., causing the roads to be congested with these cars. Though very convenient for common people, private vehicles defeat the purpose of public transportations that tends to help abate the immense crowding of roads. The analogy of this is that the cars take up too much of the space of roads despite having only a passenger, while public transportations caters a lot of room for passengers. Be that as it may, this can save up so much leeway for our roads. Undeniably, private vehicles dominate the roads in the Philippines. According to a journal, Philippines: Meeting the Infrastructure Challenges by World bank, road infrastructures in our country are said to be lacking, thus, this can’t suffice to solve the problem of traffic congestion in the Philippines. With the problem of private vehicles dominating the roads of the Philippines, the government’s response to this is to add more road infrastructures. To debunk things, an example of this project, in early 2020, the SMC or San Miguel Corporations got the higher up’s go signal to plan the building of a 19.37-kilometer elevated expressway in Pasig -- Pasig Expressway that will be built along the river banks, this is said to be an aid in the road system problems especially with regards to travel times and ease congestion. In which, we see very ironically. There's a big irony behind the buildings of these road networks. In addition to that, PARex's goal to ease congestion is completely faulty when put to reality, the urban expressways will just lead to higher car use which will increase the congestion, and most importantly, the pollution that it will cause. On the other hand, while it is intended to ease the flow of road systems, they unknowingly aggravate the situation because their construction can take a ginormous amount of space that should be for the vehicles to pass through, another factor of congestion.

. . .urban expressways will just lead to higher car use which will increase the congestion. . .

urban expressways will just lead to higher car use which will increase the congestion A lot have expressed their opposition to the building of PARex. Scientists, citizens, organizations, and etc., have appealed to the government to stop the proposal because they say that this can cause a major problem -- pollution, despite aiming to solve another major problem. An article ‘Pasig River expressway opposed‘ by Mariejo S. Ramos reported that these particular groups of people who showed strong opposition stated that this might be the Pasig river’s ‘death sentence’. The proposal is so shallow that it gives off a problem more than a solution. The problem to be solved here is the traffic congestion. Upon analyzing things, The overload of private vehicles on the roads is the main contributing factor of traffic congestion and not public transportation. Also, adding infrastructures is good at some point, but it is evident that it is not the answer to the main problem for this is a band-aid solution that absurdly gives way to birthing another problem.

The overload of private vehicles on the roads is the main contributing factor of traffic congestion. . .

Additionally, We have seen lots of vlogs and reviews from foreigners and tourists, and the Philippines is surely known for this traffic congestion issue. With that, the never ending comparison with other countries continues. As much as we hate to admit it, but, most of the time we agree with their sentiments that our country’s transport system is really messed up.

There are countries that have an efficient transportation system that helps a large number of people travel to places as well as foreigners to go to their destinations. Some Asian countries, namely, Singapore, Hongkong, Beijing, Japan, and Korea are listed as having the best public transit systems in the world. But what do they have in common? What makes their transportations much better than our country?

According to Asian Development Bank, Philippines Transport Sector Assessment, Strategy, and Road Map, the main challenges that are faced by the transport sectors in the Philippines are poor quality of the road network, poor intermodal integration, weak sector governance and institutional capacity, lack of quality urban transport system, and limited private investment in transport infrastructure. We believe that the problems that were mentioned should the government focus and improve on.

A good transit system must be both fast and frequent. The faster and more reliable it is, the more people will use it. It must be multi-modal that has a variety of modes of transportation from bus and train to bike, care-share and taxi. A passenger information system that displays arrival times that is updated in real-time can help customers feel that they are waiting in just a short time and it lets them trust the transit system. Most importantly comfortable, it needs to be convenient and accessible for all users.

A good transit system must be both fast and frequent. The faster and more reliable it is, the more people will use it.

“I’ll share my experience when I went to Singapore a few years ago with my family. When we arrived there, it was fascinating to see how beautiful and aesthetic the airport was designed, it is huge and modern. I remember there are a ton of floating golden balls that depict the kinetic rain and I was triggered to touch them. When we rode their trains it was modern and comfortable, it was not crowded with people and also it was very clean. Going to our destinations takes minutes to travel and it is interesting because there are maps on the overhead of the train that allows us to monitor where we are at the current moment.” AJ, one of our writers said.

Singapore, being hailed as the most accessible, efficient, convenient, sustainable, and at the same time affordable, public transport network in the world, was said to offer help to the Philippines to develop an “intelligent transportation system”. This will include schemes as a payment system for the use of certain roads in Metro Manila, and stricter policies on illegal parking and the use of bus lanes, and an integrated program that will help to reduce traffic volume and will speed up the flow of the vehicles. Browsing through the internet we saw an analysis that shows if Singapore’s system is viable in Metro Manila. Due to the increasing population and number of vehicles in the city it may not be applicable but in the near future it may be viable as long as there is proper guidance by the transit sector as well as the government and strictly following the policies in order to maintain the proper flow of the system. We suppose that Singapore’s help will play a huge role in helping the country. The Philippine’s problem in transportation may be solved and millions of Filipinos will be able to commute without any challenges.

To wrap everything up, we would like to call out for a better understanding and handling of the said “traffic congestion” issue in the Philippines. It’s definitely not a joke, and is the cause of stress for most of us who travel on a daily basis. We believe the government could help solve this if they stoop to the level of most of their citizens and leave their elitist mentality behind. Sustainable and inclusive transport system for the public is what we need and not all these anti-poor projects they are pushing through. We surely hope we could experience the safe and fast travel we all deserve considering all the tax money we give.