P3.5 billion

From P2.4 billion a few years ago, the experts conclude that we now lose P3.5 billion each day because of traffic congestion in the metropolitan area.

We could have chosen spending that same amount of money each day to solve the problem. But we did not.

When experts deployed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) arrived at the P2.4 billion figure for losses due to road congestion, then President Benigno Aquino III shrugged his shoulders. Traffic, he said, was a sign of economic progress. He then proceeded to do exactly nothing to bring weary commuters relief.

His sidekick, former transport secretary Jun Abaya was even more provocative. He insisted that traffic was not fatal. Commuters were outraged; but Abaya kept his job.

 While Abaya was transport secretary, the MT-3 went from bad to worse, the LRT-2 extension to Antipolo was delayed by years and the squabble over the central station at the junction of Edsa and North Avenue simply simmered. Abaya now faces possible plunder charges for the onerous contracts entered into with MRT-3 maintenance providers who did not seem to know what their work was about. When he did order trains from China, they turned out to be unfit for the system.

The Aquino administration’s do-nothing attitude toward problems associated with congestion produced the chaos we now endure.

As few as six trains now service the MRT-3 line during rush hours. Breakdowns happen as often as thrice daily. Government is now subsidizing bus service, complete with police outriders, to move stranded MRT-3 passengers.

The only new road space added in the metropolitan area were undertaken by the private sector: the Harbor Link road built by Metro Pacific, the elevated road linking the SLEX and airport to the reclaimed areas in Pasay built by San Miguel and the SLEX-NLEX connector road also built by San Miguel that should be available this yearend.

Under the Duterte administration’s Build, Build, Build program, the C-6 road from Bicutan to San Jose del Monte is being rushed. Financing and approvals are being finalized to build the country’s first subway line from Mindanao Avenue to the airport area via BGC. Construction activities will begin toward the end of this year.

Construction will finally begin for the much-delayed central station that will link three light rail lines. Several unsolicited proposals are being reviewed by the DOTr, including a skyway linking SM Sta. Mesa to the SM Mall of Asia. San Miguel is proposing a whole new international airport in Bulacan.

Transport Secretary Art Tugade declared that all the proposals being made by private sector consortia are welcome provided they do not require subsidies or sovereign guarantees. This could result in higher toll rates, of course. But high toll rates are preferable to stewing in choked traffic.

Still, any relief from the traffic congestion we now endure will come five or six years down the road. If the Aquino administration did not waste six years doing nothing, we could have been spared the exasperating traffic situation now pertaining.

Things will probably become worse before they become better.

The construction of the central station could choke traffic in the busy Edsa-North Avenue junction for three years. There is talk the MRT-3 might have to be shut down to make way for its complete rehabilitation. 

We will endure more pain as long as we may hope for relief down the road. That might not be certain.

The continuing population explosion in the metropolitan area could congest even the newly built road space. One expert study sees the SLEX becoming as congested as Edsa in maybe two years. We urgently need more roads leading to the south of the metropolis.

We need more roads leading north as well. Last Sunday, the NLEX resembled Edsa as metro residents returned from the long weekend. Traffic crawled from Pampanga and the Bocaue tollgates were crammed.

It will probably take a generation before we straighten out the traffic problems besetting the metropolis. It pains to think that we wasted six years under an administration that seemed determined to do nothing about the congestion problem that now taxes us every day.

I am not sure if the estimate that Metro Manila loses P3.5 daily to hellish traffic includes all the health costs brought about by stress and pollution, all the opportunities lost because we could not move from one point in the city to the next, and all the quality time we could have spent with our families.

From where I live in Quezon City, I need to allot three hours of travel time on a typical workday to get to the airport and catch a flight. Over the past year, I have refused to fly out of Manila because of what it takes just to get to the airport.

Harassed employees need to leave home at four in the morning and return 10 at night just to be at their jobs. They get barely four hours of sleep and no family life to speak of. The only way to cope is to sleep en route.

Metro Manila has become less livable by the day. Experts now tell us this unplanned, chaotic metropolitan jungle will not be habitable in 25 years. New infra and new technologies might fail to save this city.

P3.5 billion daily may only be a measure of productivity and fuel costs lost due to the horrendous traffic we endure. It does not yet account for the rapidly declining quality of life and shorter lifespans we endure.