MMDA on traffic: Worst is yet to come

MANILA, Philippines — Motorists should expect traffic gridlocks along EDSA to worsen in 2019 as two major bridges will be rehabilitated, a Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) official said yesterday.  

“The worst traffic is yet to come… in 2019,” EDSA traffic czar Bong Nebrija said.

The Deparment of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) will start retrofitting the EDSA-Guadalupe Bridge, which connects the cities of Makati and Mandaluyong in January, he said.

Forty percent of the bridge, which is located at the Guadalupe station of the Metro Rail Transit Line 3, will be retrofitted segment by segment for both northbound and southbound lanes on EDSA, he said.

The DPWH will also resume rehabilitation work on the Pantaleon or Rockwell Bridge, which was suspended last September, in January, Nebrija said. 

The Pantaleon Bridge, which also connects the cities of Makati and Mandaluyong, was first closed to motorists in September, but was later re-opened following public clamor and businessmen’s apprehension on economic losses. 

“Due to public clamor and apprehension of the business circle that the timing and closure will cause possible huge economic loss specially this coming holiday season, we are constrained to defer the implementation of the project,” the DPWH has said. 

Should the rehabilitation of the two bridges be done simultaneously, Nebrija said the worst traffic will surely happen in the first quarter of 2019 and end by 2020.  

He assured motorists that MMDA officials are thinking of traffic reduction measures before starting the bridges’ rehabilitation.

Nebrija said among these measures is the intensified clearing of roads along “mabuhay lanes,” or alternate routes motorists may take to avoid EDSA traffic.

He also said the MMDA is also considering starting enforcing the ban on provincial buses on EDSA to minimize the number of vehicles plying the metropolis’ busiest road. 

Based on the MMDA’s data, the traffic volume on EDSA has reached 402,000 vehicles as of Dec. 19, exceeding by 40 percent its carrying capacity of 288,000 per day. 

MMDA chairman Danilo Lim said while they are strengthening efforts to address the traffic problem, he is banking on the discipline of motorists as a solution to the problem. 

“We need discipline on the streets now – following traffic laws, road courtesy and more patience,” Lim said in Filipino.