FOR a megalopolitan center like Metro Manila, urban traffic is a fact of life, which in sense also reflects progress.
Lately, President Rodrigo Duterte, in a surprise statement, assured the public that travel time from Cubao to Makati via EDSA will be cut down to five minutes from the endless temper-flaring traffic jams that waste long precious hours.
In upping the ante, the President, in his recent visit to the Manila International Airport, also ordered the “immediate” transfer of the domestic airport to Sangley Point, in Cavite.
The issue about traffic in Philippine airports has long been a focus of frustration. Investors view the failure of government to enlist private participation in building new terminals as anathema to socio-economic growth.
Before the Sangley pronouncement, offers to build modern runways outside Metro Manila were publicly disclosed, but State reluctance to grab the proposals has created doubts on the government’s resolve to really address airport congestion.
Even the promise to solve the EDSA traffic chaos along Edsa, despite years of struggle to find viable solutions, is still a pipe dream. With thousands of transport units fielded each year, common sense tells us fast and smooth travel will remain wishful thinking.
Not that we doubt the President’s capacity to come up and execute game-changing solutions; rather, we have a problem when it comes to timetables, given that drawbacks that have been unsolved for so long cannot be remedied overnight.
Reducing the Cubao-Makati travel time means many things to experts. Among others, the solutions may include building a subway facility; removing ancient buses from the road; disallowing motorcycles from EDSA; prohibiting the use of sidewalks and easements as garage, terminal and motor pool; and strictly implementing traffic rules.
As for flight woes to ease, the opening of new airports in Bulacan and Cavite will greatly help eliminate tarmac troubles at the Ninoy Aquini International Airport. Consequently, international traffic can be exclusively confined in Clark and Bulacan, with NAIA exclusively devoted to domestic flights.
Sangley Airport can indeed be transformed into an exclusive hub for private planes, choppers and such other airborne-operated conveyances.
The traffic problem is not insoluble. Why it has become a monstrous challenge today can be blamed on the lack of foresight and political will among those charged to manage it.
When public convenience is sacrificed in the name of corruption, order is lost.
