MANILA, Philippines — President Duterte’s promise it would take only five minutes from Makati City to Cubao, Quezon City by December is just not doable, a Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) official said yesterday.
Bong Nebrija, EDSA traffic czar, said Duterte’s vision is far from at least 40 minutes it takes to travel from Makati to Cubao. “With the current setup, no,” Nebrija told The STAR.
“With the volume of vehicles and failure to get emergency powers, how can you drastically reduce the travel time on EDSA from more than one hour to five minutes?” he added.
Nebrija said with a court order stopping the implementation of the provincial bus ban, they are looking for new traffic reduction measures.
Private motorists travel at 19.3 kilometers per hour, equivalent to a travel time of one hour and 11 minutes, while buses travel at 12 kph or take two hours to travel from Roxas Boulevard in Pasay to Monumento, Caloocan City, according to Nebrija.
Citing data from the MMDA’s traffic engineering unit, Nebrija said they recorded an average of 405,000 vehicles going through EDSA per day in August this year and 410,000 vehicles per day in September alone.
The MMDA recorded an average of 402,000 vehicles on Dec. 19, 2018. Nebrija said it was the highest number of vehicles recorded last year, less than a week before Christmas Day.
The number of vehicles passing through EDSA is expected to increase by December, Nebrija said.
He said coordinating with the police Highway Patrol Group to enforce discipline among motorists is among the MMDA’s efforts to address the Christmas traffic problem.