MANGALDAN, Pangasinan, Philippines— This town has been accommodating pedicabs in its streets since the 1950s and these foot-powered tricycles have overtaken their smoke-belching counterparts as the popular mode of transportation.
But life is hard for drivers of these contraptions, the designs of which remind people of big-wheeled bikes of the 1950s and 1960s.
Juanito Morales, 68, one of the oldest pedicab drivers here, roams the town center and nearby villages from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. but brings home only P150 to his family.
Since he doesn’t own the pedicab, he pays P40 daily to its operator, leaving him with only about P100 to feed his wife, children and grandchildren. He has a 33-year-old son who also drives a pedicab.
“Before, we earn around P250 to P300. But because the number of pedicab drivers keeps increasing, competition for passengers is cutthroat,” says Morales.
The boom in the pedicab business in this central Pangasinan town is manifested in its 1,371 registered pedicabs (hundreds more are unregistered). This is higher than the 1,110 registered motorized tricycles, records from the town’s business tax and licensing department show.
“Mangaldan is one of the few remaining towns in the province with pedicabs. It is the town’s ubiquitous means of public transport since the 1950s. And being a pedicab driver is the most common livelihood among the town’s lowest class,” Mayor Herminio Romero says.
But pedicab drivers have been blamed for heavy traffic in the town’s business district. Because pedicabs are slow moving, these are regarded as nuisance by commuters in the province’s major commercial, educational and government centers, like Dagupan City and the capital Lingayen.
“Mangaldan may be the only town allowing pedicabs on the national road, mainly because of social practice and the lack of other routes,” says Jorge de Vera, municipal traffic and disaster risk reduction consultant.
An ordinance prohibiting pedicabs from the national road in the central business district from 6:30 to 9:30 a.m. and from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m., when public utility jeeps and minibuses pack the roads, has been implemented since February.
“We have been advising people, especially the elderly, not to go to the market earlier than 9:30 a.m. so they could avoid walking. But there are those who simply won’t comply and ask pedicab drivers to transport them right in front of stores,” says De Vera.