Gridlock

Certain public officials, when criticized for the despicable traffic gridlocks in Metro Manila, point out that the problem boils down to too many cars on the road, and toss part of the blame to us private vehicle owners who refuse to leave our cars at home.

So last week I tested mass transport in the traffic-choked city of Manila.

I was in Ermita, only about three kilometers away from the STAR office in Port Area so I looked for a taxi. The handful of cabbies with no passengers refused to go to Ground Zero of the nation’s traffic gridlock, so I walked to A. Mabini street for the old reliable jeepney.

Except it’s not always that reliable. The traffic mess in the ports probably turned away the jeepneys too. After five minutes of waiting in vain in the scorching afternoon heat for a Pier-bound jeepney, I took one bound for Sta. Cruz, with the two rear seats empty.

That rear end has metal sheets wrapped around the jeepney frame above the seats. Having been a “jeepsetter” for many years, I knew the sheets protected passengers from snatchers in the streets. I know a number of people who have lost earrings, necklaces and cell phones pressed to their ears while sitting in a jeepney with no protective screen behind them.

These days students are targeted for their gadgets, particularly smart phones and computers. Personal safety is one of the biggest risks when taking mass transportation.

The safest way to foil snatchers (or armed robbers in buses) is of course not to wear any jewelry or use pricey gadgets while in public transport. But there are many people who think such misfortunes happen only to others, and sometimes using a phone is unavoidable.

In the streets of Manila where it’s easy for criminals to melt into the crowd, snatching is facilitated by slow-moving traffic. It took about 15 minutes for my jeepney to traverse five or six short city blocks, and it wasn’t because there were too many vehicles on A. Mabini. We inched along at one kilometer per hour because the driver stopped at the sight of any person or group that seemed to need a ride. He picked up and let off passengers in the middle of the street, heedless of the cussing and angry honking of horns by other motorists.

Some months ago I had a similar experience in a bus, which I took because transport officials said private vehicle owners should stop whining about the traffic and do our part by trying mass transportation instead. With all the waiting and stopping, my usual travel time to work nearly tripled on that bus ride, and it wasn’t even rush hour or a stormy day.

At least that bus was air-conditioned and I sat in front so I could see the sights. The downside of sitting in the jeepney’s rear is that you get to inhale even more pollution than usual. We can only guess how these jeepneys manage to pass emission tests for vehicle registration.

When we finally reached T.M. Kalaw, the traffic moved even slower so I got off to look for another ride. Still no cabs even in an area that is supposedly for tourists. And no Pier-bound jeepneys either.

So I walked through Rizal Park, which was a pleasant experience – that park is so under-utilized and under-promoted – and crossed the street. After waiting a bit longer for a taxi, I gave up and got a private ride to the office. Going from Ermita to our office took me about 40 minutes.

That’s the efficiency of our mass transportation system.

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I know a number of private car owners, including exceptionally wealthy ones, who are more than willing to take mass transportation if there is an efficient system available.

By efficient, I mean not only fast and running on schedule but also relatively safe, clean and comfortable enough to prevent the commuter from arriving at his or her destination looking wilted and badly in need of a shower, with symptoms of conjunctivitis from dust.

Those who avoid jeepneys tend to be health conscious; they are aware that constant exposure to vehicle emissions is hazardous to health and can mean expensive health care costs.

The overhead railway systems are popular because they meet these criteria to a certain extent. Now the challenge is expanding the light rail system without any project becoming bogged down in a $30-million extortion complaint and alleged sweetheart deals even under daang matuwid. (And we want a continuation of such deals after 2016?)

Even if the light railways cannot cover the entire Metro Manila, areas can be developed at key stations where private car owners can leave their vehicles and take the train, like the parking lots for the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) in San Francisco.

Trains can ease the traffic jams in Manila’s ports, by absorbing the cargo currently transported by all those lumbering, smog-emitting, poorly maintained trucks.

While we’re on a “wish ko lang” mode, we can also hope for a BART-type train service from the NAIA that will stop at major points along EDSA all the way to Monumento if not to Clark. It will not only help ease traffic but also save passengers from exorbitant taxi fares from NAIA.

Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson believes that in Metro Manila, where the expansion of road networks can’t keep up with rapid population growth and continuing increase in vehicle density, one long-term answer is a subway system.

When we laugh and tell him that we can’t even pump water out of Manila’s underpasses in a regular downpour, he says we just need an efficient water pumping system. Earthquake? He points to earthquake-prone Japan and its highly efficient subways.

We need long-term plans to deal with the traffic problem. Experts including those in the Japan International Cooperation Agency have warned that traffic jams dampen economic growth, and the country could lose P6 billion a day by 2030 because of traffic gridlocks. In 2012, JICA placed the economic cost at P2.4 billion daily.

I doubt if I’ll see a subway in Metro Manila in my lifetime. Even an expanded light rail system is iffy at this point, if the same gang continues to be in charge.

More doable ASAP is improved traffic management, including coordination among agencies concerned. Imposing road discipline on drivers such as the one in the jeepney in Ermita can be a good start. But even this is proving to be an impossible task.