Silver Lining on the Metro Manila Traffic Miseries

Traffic congestion is often associated with megacities, of which the Greater Metro Manila is 5th largest in the world. Its traffic problem, however, is bruited about as “world class”. This distinction is the by-product_ of an inability to address infrastructure gaps, a disregard of well-studied plans over the last (three) decades, and piece-meal efforts at adopting scientific solutions. This paper re-visits the root causes of the problem and redefines the changing objective function – from maximizing vehicular to people flows.

Lessons from other cities have demonstrated a multitude of congestion antidotes that have gained the status of best practices. Some of these have been called Transportation Systems Management (TSM) and Transportation Demand Management (TDM). More roadways and more rail transit lines have been the traditional response to traffic congestion. TSM/TDM has expanded the menu of solutions – to include actions to reduce the use of single-occupant vehicles, regulate travel demand in time and space, designation of exclusive lanes for higher occupancy vehicles. In Metro Manila, this strand has taken the form of vehicle number coding, flirtations with staggered working hours, one-way schemes, reversible lanes, computer-coordinated traffic signaling system, and widespread adoption ofretrograde U-Tum schemes.

The limits to road building dictate that more people should share rides by taking public transport and minimizing car use. That would necessitate a radical re-invention of the public transport system that has been caught – with consent – on a low performance equilibrium trap in the last 40 years. It is a low-cost measure with high pay-offs, but one that is most difficult to execute. No one would dare confront the elephant on the roads: the jeepneys (>60,000) and the metro buses (>5,300) with their atomized operating structure. Very little is being done on land use controls which has long-term impacts, while road pricing is talked about but avoided like a plague.

There is no silver bullet in solving traffic congestion; it requires a comprehensive set of measures implemented over several years. In terms of master plans, Metro Manila has not been lacking. There was the MMETROPLAN of 1975 which brought about the LRT 1 and the now-forgotten bus ways on Magsaysay Boulevard. This was followed by MMUTSTRAPP in 1984 and the MMUTIS in 1998. Some components of these plans were implemented – but they were Sisyphean in character. All of the three plans from 1975 to 2011 were constrained by small budget envelopes of recent vintage is the Transport Roadmap for the Greater Capital Region, which included a bold ‘dream plan’ to vanish traffic congestion by year 2030. It requires massive investments in infrastructure: 137 km of new roads, 78 km of urban expressway, and more than 200 km rail transit lines – elevated and underground. It also calls for a radical restructuring of the current surface public transport system comprising the jeepney and bus modes. The dream plan is estimated to require Php2,600 billion to fix traffic congestion that is costing the economy Php2.4 billion a day. Unlike the previous three plans, this one can fit into the projected budget envelope to year 2030. The prospect of relief, however, is clouded by institutional arthritis – an inability to execute projects of the transport kind. It is hard to imagine 200 km ofrail lines being built in 15 years, when 4 km could not even break ground in 5 years.

A black swan event – such as a massive earthquake – could finesse institutional rigidities. Rapid diffusion of new technologies, like autonomous cars and smart roads, as well as increasing global pressure towards green transport offer more sanguine prospects to end traffic woes. Growing discontents with traffic jams may just be the deus ex machina that would shake up lethargic public sector agencies and put an end to the jeepney mentality.

KEYWORDS