Innovative win-win solutions to the horrendous worsening traffic on Edsa and other major thoroughfares in Metro Manila are still possible, given the same limits of road space, the same number of public transport vehicles and the same tight passenger capacity of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT)/Light Rail Transit (LRT) train system.
However, the genuine long-term solutions are building more infrastructures, particularly more effective railway mass transit systems and more efficient public buses, which must be combined with a road-congestion pricing policy, each one of which merits separate discussions in the future.
Solution takes some imagination. What it takes is a little imagination and a simple application of the principles of spatial management to solve the traffic that is causing losses of P2.4 billion a day, says a Japan-funded study. Some may disagree vehemently insisting on their views on what is right. On the contrary, perhaps, my proposal may be right for a given point in time. After all, what is right is relative.
In Filipino, right means tama. This tempts me to suggest the idea of an advocacy group, which others may pick up and call the Transport Advocates’ Movement for Action (TAMA). It may not always claim to be right, but it may just be right at certain times. Its inherent message for immediate action simply articulates the mass frustration of both the commuters and motorists who get stuck in daily traffic, which will get worse, considering the yearly massive sales of vehicles.
In 2015 sales of these vehicles hit 310,000, about one-third of which were registered in Metro Manila. Maybe 60 percent find their way into Metro Manila, for those registered in nearby Central Luzon and the Calabarzon regions, from where many motor to work and business, or shop occasionally in Metro Manila, particularly during holidays.
Standing policy? This innovative solution is premised on the fact there is no way to widen road space and that the arrival of new MRT coaches will take time.
This viable and immediate solution simply increases the riding capacities of buses by reducing the number of seats from five seats to a row to only two seats per row, or limiting the seats around the inner sides of the bus, similar to seats on a train, which can be reserved for the handicapped, elderly and pregnant women. If this is possible for MRT and LRT, why can’t it be applied temporarily to city buses?
This can literally be called Department of Transportation and Communications’s (DOTC) “standing policy.” This will allow for wider aisles and more standing room that will accomodate more passengers by 50 percent to 80 percent, or more.
Faster turnarounds mean less traffic. The wider aisles will allow faster disembarking and loading, and, therefore, lesser time spent at bus stops, which means lesser traffic buildup, thus, resulting in faster turnovers and time savings by at least 20 percent more. The DOTC can immediately do time and motion studies on this by experimenting on a few buses on a pilot basis.
The higher revenue returns can mean two things: For one, bus operators need no longer push for higher fares, during fuel-price hikes, which is good for commuters. Second, drivers are able to earn more with more passengers and turnovers. Thus, it will be easier to impose limits on working hours to avoid accidents that often result from sleepy drivers, working overtime, some of whom even make use of prohibitive drugs just to keep themselves awake.
However, this must strictly be allowed only for Metro Manila buses, which experience slow-moving traffic and that safe speed-limit meters be installed. Spatial management may mean optimizing space, or increasing passenger riding capacities of existing public buses, it also means maximizing road space through faster turnover of commuters and motorists, so that those coming at later time schedules do not compete for road space and transport-riding capacities with those coming much earlier, who are still stuck on the road due to slow turnovers.
Ironic MRT reverse rides for faster turnovers. A friend of mine, transport Koop organizer Dave Garcia, said this principle can also be applied to the MRT and LRT trains, despite the decline in the number of coaches owing to obsolescence.
On the contrary, despite the limited number of coaches, it is still possible to increase MRT’s volume passenger capacity by reducing the train stops to three stops one-way when the volume of passengers is heavy (i.e., North to South in the morning rush and Pasay Taft to North during the evening rush), but allowing train passengers to commute backward in the opposite direction, where the volume of passengers is light, until they reach their intended destinations.
Perhaps, we can have three mid-way stops from North to South in the morning rush, say at Cubao, Shaw and Ayala, before reaching the final destination at Pasay Taft. If one has to get off before any of these major stops, one simply has to get off way beyond, then commute on the way back to one’s intended destination.
This will enable the MRT trains to make faster turnarounds, so as to avoid the one-way buildup of commuters, whose resulting long queues have spillover effects and the resulting mad scramble for alternative bus rides onto Edsa.
The solutions above will not entail costs for government, but simply requires a simple executive fiat from our policy-makers. We just hope our transport leaders will take notice of the common good this time, rather than get bogged down again with indecision, incompetence and squabbles over deals and delivery of services from the MRT, car plates and drivers licenses. I hope they have the WHEEL (will) power to get the transport sector moving.
E-mail: mikealunan@yahoo.com.