Flyover with common sense, please

In the 1960s, when you go to the Banilad-Talamban (Ban-Tal) area, you would follow a narrow and dusty two-lane road, one lane each direction. Then the USC Technological Center (now USC Talamban Campus) was built.

The center’s presence attracted not only many people to live near the area but also all sorts of business and a myriad list of human activities, including more schools. Traffic was building up. So the road was paved and widened to four lanes (two lanes either direction), up to the USC Talamban campus at least. To facilitate the movement of traffic, signal lights, a time sharing system (according to urban planner Dr. Primitvo Cal), were also put in place. These things helped but the improved flow of traffic only caused the development in the Ban-Tal area to intensify. Consequently, the traffic continues to grow and travel worsened again. How do we solve that? Simple! One is to extend the time the signal light change its color. If you are patient enough to wait a minute or two longer, then that is good enough but not when after the red light returns you are still parked in the middle of the road.

When you get stuck in the middle of the largest parking lot in the Ban-Tal area, you sweat, you swear and you get mad? At whom? Never mind. The point is that there is again another simple answer to the problem—the flyover. Is the problem solved? Let us see.

But first, what is a flyover? It is just a bridge, really, that is formed by the upper level of a crossing of two highways at different levels. What is the purpose of building a flyover? Simple again. As you can see in the Ban-Tal area, it is to allow the traffic to cross the intersection without delay. If that is so, then what the hell are we debating about with the proposed two more flyovers?

Again, first thing first. I, too, have no objections to building flyovers when needed in the right place. Did I say crossing of two highways? That is one and not just any two intersecting city roads in a very busy business district, but never mind that. I first saw the flyovers in Luzon in the 1980s—the North and South Expressways. It really made travel faster there. But one thing I notice, which now I also know to be the standard practice, is that when you built a flyover, its number of lanes should match the number of lanes of the highway. If the flyover has less number of lanes than the highway, it would not take a rocket science genius to see that a bottleneck will develop at each end of the flyover at peak time.

Of course, it is true that the three existing flyovers in the Ban-Tal area has improved the flow of traffic there but that is true only during off-peak hours. Whereas before the flyovers, you had to wait for the green light to cross an intersection even at off-peak hours, now with the flyovers, you just continue to press your pedal. It is different on peak hours. Go to the Ban-Tal area in the morning and afternoon peak hours and all you see is hell. Why? Because when two lines of cars in the highway reach the entrance of the bridge, a bottleneck is sure to develop, which again will cause you to sweat, swear, and get mad, even to yourself for being there at the wrong time.

In the late 1990s, I, too, live in Talamban and drove a government service vehicle. I had to be in the office at 8 a.m. so I could not avoid driving at peak hour, unless I leave much earlier at 6 a.m. I endured the trouble but not for long. In the end, I solved my problem by transferring my residence. For the others who did not leave, the government gave them the flyovers. Lucky you guys!

Yes, I think we need flyovers in the Ban-Tal area if we can endure their ugliness (this is another story by the way). But if we have to, please let us do it correctly using simple logic. Let us not build a two-lane flyover over a four-lane highway because while it improves the flow of traffic at normal time (no need to stop for the signal light), it actually creates more chaos during peak hours. Let me repeat this: If the flyover has less number of lanes than the highway, it would not take a rocket science genius to see that a bottleneck will develop at each end of the flyover at peak time. Why?

This happens because when two lines of cars in the same direction are entering a point where only one line of cars is possible, either of two things could happen: The first is for the one on the right or outer lane to cut in and cause the other driver being cut to curse. The second is for the driver on the outer lane to go into the inner lane long before reaching the entrance of the flyover. However, this also creates a long line of cars waiting to cross the flyover. The result is the same—a long wait, a delay. When you are in a hurry, as always now in a highly globalized economy, you again sweat, swear or get mad.

So why do we insist on having a two-lane flyover over a four-lane highway in the Ban-Tal area? The builder or planner may reason out this way. The outer lane is for vehicles that need to take a left or right turn underneath the flyover. Right, but if there is really a need for this, then the best thing to do is to add another lane of, say, 100 or even up to 300 or more in length on both sides before the entrance of the flyover to maintain the main flow of traffic in a four-lane road and not chock it with two-lane flyover. Get that?