Edsa travel time cut by 11 minutes

Traffic flow slows down to a crawl on Edsa during Friday’s Metro Manila Shake Drill which aims to prepare the public for the “Big One.” —RICHARD A. REYES

Not all commuters may agree but, according to the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA), travel time from one end of Edsa to another has become faster by 11 minutes.

It attributed the improvement to the different traffic alleviation measures being implemented on the country’s busiest thoroughfare.

Citing the results of its recent time and motion study on the 23-kilometer highway, the MMDA said that from January to June this year, the average travel time on Edsa from Roxas Boulevard, Pasay City, to Balintawak, Quezon City, was one hour and 12 minutes.

This was 11 minutes faster than the average recorded from July to December 2016, it added.

Vehicles generally moved at 19.24 km per hour, MMDA chair Danny Lim told mayors who comprise the Metro Manila Council, the MMDA’s policymaking body, during a meeting last week.

Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista, one of the mayors present, said the improvement in the traffic situation could be attributed to the MMDA’s continuous clearing operations targeting illegally parked cars, street vendors and other obstructions.

Between May and June alone, the MMDA apprehended more than 1,500 motorists for illegal parking and around 100 vehicles for operating without a franchise.

To corroborate the data that the traffic situation has improved, Bautista said that a city councilor shared that from an hour and a half, it now takes him just 55 minutes to reach the MMDA office in Makati City from Las Piñas.

But despite the MMDA’s claim, certain factors, some beyond the agency’s control, can adversely affect traffic flow. On June 30, for example, it took commuters hours to reach their destinations because of heavy traffic on Edsa that was aggravated by heavy rainfall and it being a payday Friday.

To address the huge volume of vehicles in the metropolis, Lim earlier floated the idea of implementing a two-day number coding scheme. But because of the largely negative reaction from the public, the proposal was scrapped.

Metro mayors, however, agreed to extend until Sept. 15 the light truck ban being imposed on Edsa and Shaw Boulevard.