Abalos, La Salle traffic dialogue set

Mandaluyong Mayor Benhur Abalos said on Tuesday that he was willing to hold a dialogue with La Salle Green Hills (LSGH) officials on how they could better address the traffic situation on a portion of Ortigas Avenue in Barangay Wack Wack.

Earlier, the Philippine National Police-Highway Patrol Group (PNP-HPG)—recently tasked by Malacañang to direct traffic flow on Edsa—said that it would apprehend motorists using streets as parking lots.

Chief Supt. Arnold Gunnacao, head of the PNP-HPG, cited the situation at LSGH where traffic flow on the portion of Ortigas Avenue near Edsa slows down to a crawl as vehicles pick up or drop off students. The traffic buildup spills over to Edsa, making the intersection one of the six choke points on the busy thoroughfare.

Abalos told the Inquirer in an interview yesterday that one of the solutions he would present to the LSGH administration in the dialogue, which may be held in the coming weeks, was the possibility of having a different schedule for the dismissal of students.

“Apart from the [huge number of] vehicles and small streets, the problem here is when the students go out of the school all at the same time,” Abalos said. He expressed hope that both sides would be able to come up with “a lot of options” in solving the traffic situation in the area.

At the same time, Abalos said he was also “more than willing to provide” additional traffic enforcers to augment the PNP-HPG personnel assigned to direct traffic on Edsa-Mandaluyong.

He expressed his approval of the way the police took over traffic management on Edsa from the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority.

“What’s good [about] the [deployment of the] HPG is that it will solve not only traffic but also criminality,” Abalos said, pointing out that the policemen’s presence would discourage those planning to commit crimes since their chances of being caught were very high.

He urged the public to show its support and to cooperate with the PNP-HPG to ensure that it would be able to sustain its initiatives of easing traffic on the busy highway.