Not ready for tough traffic solutions

Everybody is complaining about the traffic, but very few are ready for the tough solutions required to make things better. We blame government and rightly so. But many of us aggravate government’s failure to provide adequate infra and enforce traffic laws. 

Here are the facts of life we must consider in any traffic solution: 

A disproportionate number of vehicles, by one estimate as much as 90 per cent of total, are running around in Metro Manila which only has four percent of the nation’s roads. Motorists and pedestrians refuse to be disciplined. Enforcement of rules on the road is a means of livelihood for the enforcers, in other words plagued by corruption. 

We have all adopted some coping mechanisms to survive the traffic ordeal. For me, I instinctively decline invitations that require me to go to Makati, more so Alabang. I have to like you or really hold you in high esteem to take the punishment of a drive on EDSA or C5 during the morning rush hours for a breakfast meeting.

Of course our situation is not hopeless unless we all agree it is. We don’t even have to reinvent the wheel because many world cities have successfully implemented solutions to similar problems with traffic.

We have to realize there are no quick fix solutions. Decades of neglect have made any attempt to alleviate the problem more complicated than it should be. Vested interests fight to keep the chaotic situation the way it is, the operators of the fragmented bus companies for example.

 But there are solutions. Like any economist, Ciel Habito crunched some numbers to come up with obvious solutions that, however, seem harsh. Ciel commutes daily from his house in Los Banos to Metro Manila and it must be frustrating to spend a good part of one’s productive life stuck in traffic jams.

Here is how he assessed the problem in a recent column: “Motor vehicle sales have zoomed in recent years, with an annual growth rate of 27 percent as of last report. Industry analysts observe the Philippines has crossed the ‘motorization’ average income threshold, or that level at which vehicle ownership becomes widely accessible, leading to the zooming growth in car sales we are now witnessing. 

“Last year, the industry counted 321,532 new motor vehicles sold in the country. A total of 419,339 motor vehicles were registered for the first time, implying that nearly 100,000 new and used cars must have also been imported. 

“All together, this implies that around 35,000 new vehicles hit our roads every month. Netting out an estimated 180,000 vehicles retired last year, the net addition was about 240,000 vehicles over the past year, or 20,000 added every month. 

“How many of these were in Metro Manila? With 36.5 percent of our total incomes concentrated in Metro Manila, a reasonable estimate would be that same proportion of 20,000, or 7,300 vehicles, adding to Metro Manila traffic with every passing month. 

“And this expansion will continue, with the monthly addition getting even bigger in the years ahead. These data don’t even count motorcycles yet, which would more than double these numbers.” 

Building new roads or flyovers won’t do much. Ciel observed that “Building new roads to solve traffic congestion has, in fact, been likened to trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it, because expanding roads only begets even greater demand for cars.” 

The challenge is to convince a good number of car owners to leave their cars at home. But how can people leave their cars at home when there is no safe and reliable public transport system? 

We lost valuable time, the entire six years of P-Noy’s term to put the MRT3 up to par. New mass transport rail lines will take three to five years before people can use them. And that’s on the assumption that we break ground now. Only MRT7 has broken ground but won’t be operational until 2019, assuming they have no serious ROW or right of way problems. 

So, what can we do? Impose an economic solution. Ciel suggests taxing traffic. It is not a new approach. 

Singapore and London, among other cities, have successfully made users pay for the traffic congestion they contribute to. They imposed economic disincentives to own a car and/or drive a car into a congested business district. 

I know… that’s unfair because unlike Singapore’s MRT and London’s Tube, we only have a rotten MRT3 and half rotten LRT1 and 2 pretending to be our mass transit system. The buses, UVs and jeepneys with their death defying drivers are dangerous to life and limb and rather inefficient. It is chaotic as hell or maybe, free enterprise at its worst. 

Still, we are in desperate times and we need

to do something fast. That’s why Sec Art Tugade is asking for emergency powers. If only they have a good idea of how to use the emergency powers they seek, we can have hope.

 When my son was working in Singapore, he decided to buy a humble VW Golf. I think he bought a second hand one for S$20,000. But the right to buy and own that car called the COE or Certificate of Entitlement set him back by S$60,000. The price of the COE is determined by the market, supply and demand. If there is a strong demand for it, the price goes high and vice versa.

 The COE is a disincentive for the Singaporean resident who is thinking of buying a car. And that’s not all. To drive that car into areas considered congested means you have to pay some kind of congestion tax. The amount varies… depending on time of the day and traffic volume.

 For example if we take our situation, every motorist who wants to drive into Makati or use EDSA during rush hours must pay. Ciel said the congestion tax reduced the traffic in the usually congested areas of Singapore by 76 per cent.

 Collection is efficient and cannot be evaded. Every car must have a RFID so that the charging is automatic. The congestion tax may not dissuade some motorists from going to Makati or using EDSA or C5 but there is an economic cost for doing so. The congestion tax may prove better than the current number coding scheme which only resulted in more car purchases.

 Proceeds can be used to improve transport infra but must be better protected from bureaucratic thieves like those who plundered our road users tax in the past. This congestion charge is not very palatable and may even seem harsh and drastic but the alternative is to suffer even more in those parking lots we call highways.

 The congestion tax and the COE are not enough.  We need to improve mass transport, rationalize our bus, jeep, UV system. In Shanghai, only vehicles with Shanghai plates can operate in the metro area during business hours. Of course we cannot do that here because LTO is still unable to supply car plates for every registered vehicle.

 We must also have a program… including one that removes all PEZA tax incentives for new BPOs and other businesses wanting to locate within Metro Manila to encourage them to go outside of the metro area. Maybe there should be an end to any more mall building within the metro area and a moratorium on payday super sales events.

 Sec Tugade told the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) last Tuesday that political will differentiates this administration from the past. Tugade said they have the political will to do what they must, to accomplish the seemingly hopelessly impossible task of managing our traffic situation.

Let us see what exactly they can do with that political will they claim they have.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco