Road repair messes up traffic in Quezon towns

LUCENA CITY—Pockets of road construction projects along the Maharlika Highway between Pagbilao and Atimonan towns have stranded hundreds of motorists since Tuesday dawn, police said.

Chief Insp. Francis Pasno, the Pagbilao police chief, also blamed irresponsible motorists for the traffic gridlock.

Pasno said many motorists simply resort to counterflow, ignoring workers controlling the flow of traffic on the highway.

He said irate motorists turned their ire on workers carrying flags to signal when the lane was clear for motorists to proceed. Many of the workers abandoned their posts after suffering from verbal abuse by motorists.

“What made the traffic worse were the pockets of road construction projects and the continuous rains that made the soft, muddy shoulder impassable,” Pasno said in a telephone interview.

He said the long line of nonmoving vehicles from Barangay Malicboy in Pagbilao started to build up at around 3 a.m. and had already reached the Atimonan highway area five hours later or at around 8:30 a.m.

Pasno said he had sent policemen to help untangle the traffic mess.

Motorists and tourists driving to the provinces would keep the highways busy during the long Lenten break, a toll road official said in Bulacan.

Lawyer Edmund Reyes, executive director of the Toll Regulatory Board, said the improved economy meant  more people will be traveling through the expressways for vacation. With a report from Carmela Reyes-Estrope, Inquirer Central Luzon