Coseteng urges government to lift restriction on provincial buses

MANILA, Philippines — Former senator Nikki Coseteng is calling on the government to address the challenges currently being faced by bus operators and commuters alike due to restrictions on provincial buses in EDSA.

“I am not saying that they allow all buses to enter. You allow the buses with terminals outside of EDSA to come to EDSA and use their terminals and ferry their passengers there,” Coseteng said.

“Those who have bus terminals in EDSA, don’t use EDSA. You use the backway. I’m not the traffic czar, but I’m only saying that to deprive 450,000 people to get to where their destination is just because you want to insist on putting them in Bocaue, I think it’s grossly unfair,” she said.

Coseteng said she has personally experienced the difficulties as a commuter herself.

“They had this rule that the northern routes are going to be dropped off. The buses are going to stop in the Bocaue terminal. They cannot come to their terminals in EDSA because the goal is to declog EDSA,” she said.

Coseteng, however, argued that EDSA is not clogged by buses, but by cars.

“There are close to 300,000 cars in EDSA, but less than 11,000 buses. Every bus carries 40 or so passengers and cars carry one, two or three, most of them,” Coseteng said.

“So to carry 40 people, you will need maybe 10 cars, occupying the road, 10 cars is definitely more than one bus.

So in principle that is already a flawed premise that they are using in order to declog EDSA,” she said.

Coseteng pointed out that she is not bus operator, but she “understands the plight of the commuters,” which is why she is calling for these issues to be addressed.