Gov’t agencies eye other schemes to ease Metro traffic woes

The odd-even scheme, car pooling, and increasing the number of buses on Edsa to accommodate more passengers were among the schemes being considered by government agencies to ease the traffic congestion in Metro Manila.

These proposals were discussed at Monday’s hearing of the Senate committee on economic affairs joint with the committee on public works when Senator Bam Aquino asked officials of the Metro Manila Development Authority  (MMDA) if the deployment of the Highway Patrol Group (HPG) on Edsa was just temporary.

“Basically, ang nangyayari, we’re gonna try this first. Kung gumana (ang PHG), we’ll continue to do it. Kung hindi sya gumana we can do other…”  asked  Aquino.

(Basically, what’s happening now is we’re gonna try this first—if PHG is effective, we’ll continue to do it. If not, we can do other…)

MMDA Undersecretary Corazon Jimenez said other schemes can be put back into the drawing board.

She cited the odd-even scheme and car pooling.

“And then of course we’re looking also at the number of (Uber), grab cars or grab taxis. I  was asking how many of these are already on the roads and have been given franchise,” she added.

Meanwhile, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) is proposing to increase the number of buses plying the Edsa routes to accommodate commuters specially during rush hours.

LTRFB chairman Winston Ginez  pointed out that at present, there are 3,385 city buses and another 8,741 provincial buses that pass through Edsa.

Though they have yet to reconcile the numbers, Ginez said one count showed that only 1,500 buses   were actually running on Edsa.

“How many buses do we need to fulfill the needs of our commuters?” Aquino asked.

Ginez did not give a figure, but said that in their view, the number of buses plying Edsa is still inadequate. “So we have made a proposal actually to lift the number coding insofar as Edsa buses are concerned,”  he said.

Aquino then asked if fielding more buses on Edsa might further worsen the traffic situation.

“Hindi po ganun ang aming pananaw. Ang key po rito, kung mapapaikot ng mabilis through strict enforcement, implementation po ng yellow lane ay talagang makakaikot ang mga buses po natin so ibig sabihin po nun we can actually accommodate  yung mga  number of city buses, even 2,000, than what’s actually running now,” the LTRFB chief pointed out.

(This is not how we view it. They key factor is if we can improve the turnaround rate of buses through strict implementation of the yellow lane, this means we can actually accommodate more buses, even 2,000, than what’s actually running now.)

Ginez  said  the deployment of PHG on Edsa for one week and its strict implementation of the yellow lane for  buses for one week would show whether the public buses were indeed the cause of traffic on Edsa. Maila Ager