Mass transport

Since Nov. 16, employees of The STAR living in northern Metro Manila have enjoyed easier travel to the office.

The reason: the start of operations of the Light Rail Transit-1 Cavite Extension Phase 1, which extended LRT services from the Redemptorist-Aseana station in Baclaran, Parañaque to Dr. Santos (Sucat) in the same city, with three stops in between: MIA Road, PITX and Ninoy Aquino Avenue. The Dr. Santos station is near our office building.

End-to-end travel time is down to 50 minutes – a huge improvement. And because the work schedules of most of us in the news media don’t follow normal office hours, the employees don’t run into the rush-hour crush of LRT passengers.

They like the new, clean coaches that are more spacious than the old ones. Beep cards that can be purchased and reloaded at LRT kiosks (plus through GCash, Maya, 7Eleven, Shopeepay and Uncle John, among others) also make it unnecessary for them to wait in long lines to buy tickets.

And then there’s the fare. The one-way end-to-end trip from Fernando Poe Jr. (Roosevelt) station to Dr. Santos costs P45, and P43 with the stored value card.

The LRT ride has become so convenient that some employees are now leaving their cars at home.

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A clean, safe, speedy, widely available and efficient mass transport system is the best answer to urban traffic congestion.

It’s depressing to consider that it took ages before the LRT reached Parañaque, and that Thailand beat us by two decades in having its first subway, initially in its capital Bangkok. But looking on the bright side, at least we’re starting to see modern transport systems coming onstream in Metro Manila.

We have yet to see our first intermodal transport hub, which has been available for ages in the advanced economies. Such hubs are a boon not only for commuters but also for tourism.

The jet-setting BBM and his billionaire friends surely know what an intermodal transport hub is. Airports, light railway, subway and express train systems linked to various city centers and other, stops are interconnected and can be accessed in hubs, with bus, taxi and limo services also available at ground level.

In many cities, the hubs are integrated into underground mixed-use commercial centers. Such underground centers have been around long before the pandemic in many cities in the advanced economies of East Asia.

When I visited Singapore this year for the first time since before the COVID pandemic, I noticed the substantial expansion of the underground walkway system along Orchard Road, and elimination of many pedestrian crossings. The interconnected multilevel underground centers were clean and air-conditioned, with escalators and elevators, so few people used the street-level crossings. At the lowest level is the city-state’s highly efficient subway system.

Vehicular traffic was smoother with fewer stops at intersections and pedestrian lanes.

Concerns about earthquakes have been cited in our slow embrace of subways and underground commercial development. But other places vulnerable to earthquakes have had such networks for a long time. Roads and railway tracks have been built years ago in tunnels that run through the sea, even in places that experience earthquakes.

We’re not lacking in engineering talent and construction skills to build such systems.

But a valid concern is that public officials’ greed for kickbacks would result in contractors of vital infrastructure cutting corners, at the expense of greater vulnerability to damage from natural disasters.

We can’t even install efficient water pumps to minimize flooding or at least make floods recede quickly in our underpasses. Manila’s Lagusnilad becomes a filthy pool after just one heavy downpour.

Because of the inefficiency of mass transport, people buy cars. These are a necessity, not a luxury in this country. Those with limited parking space at home, or with limited funds, or who want an easier time navigating the traffic-choked streets of Metro Manila use motorcycles.

More cars on the road of course means heavier traffic. New roads being built are toll roads with steep rates that even middle-class motorists find oppressive. So traffic remains heavy at ground level.

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With the billions appropriated for the congressional pork barrel and secret funds of civilian agencies, it says a lot about the quality of governance that the construction of critical road infrastructure in the National Capital Region has been dumped by the government into the lap of the private sector.

It’s the duty of the state to provide adequate quality road infrastructure for free to the public, especially since billions are collected in road user’s tax.

Toll roads are fine outside urban centers, to bypass inner city traffic. These are expressways that significantly cut travel time, but even then, the rates must be reasonable.

Inside crowded cities, when the government relies on the private sector to construct and maintain even a five-kilometer bypass road or one-kilometer connector, it’s obscene and a dereliction of duty. Especially since such roads, as we are seeing, are “unli” tollways. They are not turned over to the government after a certain period; we end up paying for their use, forever, with toll collection and management simply being transferred from one well-connected group to another.

Road tolls add to logistics costs, which businessmen of course pass on to consumers. When traders have to pay several hundred to over a thousand bucks one way in road toll alone – with fuel cost not yet included – to deliver farm produce from nearby provinces to the wet markets of Metro Manila, we shouldn’t wonder why low farmgate prices aren’t reflected in retail prices.

The extension of the LRT-1 to Sucat is a much appreciated development. But it’s just a tiny step in the slog toward an efficient mass transport system in Metro Manila.

In the interim, expect a continuing increase in vehicle density, with barely any corresponding expansion in the toll-free road network.