Traffic mess requires 3,000 km of new roads

Metro Manila needs at least 3,000 kilometers of new roadways to ease its perennial traffic congestion, which according to a report of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) translates to P2.4 billion in lost income per day.

“A large urban center should allot 25 percent of its total land area for roadways. Metro Manila has only 5,037 km when it should have at least 8,000 km of roads,” said MMDA Chair Francis Tolentino, who early in his term proposed the establishment of a new national capital either in Rizal or Bulacan province.

Tolentino pointed out the road shortage plaguing the capital on Tuesday in a speech during the opening of one of the satellite stations of the Bus Management and Dispatch System (BMDS) at Coastal Mall, Parañaque City.

Through the BMDS, the MMDA seeks to regulate the number of buses plying Edsa and monitor their drivers using biometrics and finger scans.

The MMDA chief said the data used by Jica in the study “came from us (MMDA).”

Tolentino stressed, however, that the Philippines was not alone in having traffic problems that result in huge economic losses. “Even Tokyo, Japan, is losing (the equivalent of) P4.3 trillion every day due to traffic congestion.”

“Where do we get 3,000 km of roads?” he said. “Until we can do that, we have to do measures to ease the traffic congestion.”

He cited the centralized bus terminal system as one of those measures, which he said could keep provincial buses out of major thoroughfares by relocating the current 85 terminals to three areas outside the capital.

“There are 45 bus terminals on Edsa (alone), so once we get rid of them, motorists will begin to feel some relief,” he said.

According to a recent daily traffic count of the MMDA, private vehicles far outnumber public units on the road despite the implementation of the number coding scheme. An average of 264,067 private vehicles pass through Edsa every day, while only 15,214 city and provincial buses use the highway.

“In Shanghai, getting a license plate is more expensive than the car itself. In Brazil, the government is planning to improve its number coding scheme and bar drivers from using their vehicles on the main roads at least twice a week,” Tolentino said.

“There are so many ideas that we have not yet done in Metro Manila,” he added.

Last year, the MMDA chief wrote a book proposing that a portion of Metro Manila be relocated to nearby provinces like Rizal and Bulacan, similar to what Brazil, Pakistan and Malaysia did to decongest their capital cities.