Solve traffic & save over P140 billion a year!

Is fuel efficiency really what we need most desperately? I say that what we really need is a car that can be shot when it breaks down. –Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Russell Baker

Time is money. –Benjamin Franklin

I’m bored to death by the government economists and propagandists projecting high growth in gross national product (GNP). Frankly, I would rather see President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo employ her political savvy and bullheadedness to solve a very basic and longstanding problem that I believe is a big obstacle to faster Philippine economic growth and the cause of so much incalculable GNS (gross national stress) – our incomprehensible, insufferable and horrendous traffic jams!

Recently at the anniversary dinner of Remal Enterprises/Yokohama Tires hosted by Alex Yap, Bangko Sentral ex-governor Gabriel "Gabby" Singson – who was seated beside taipan John Gokongwei Jr., retired Justice Manuel Pamaran, Iloilo tycoon Alfonso Uy and paper magnate Tan Tian Siong – approached me saying: "I hope you write in your column about our serious traffic crisis. At 3 p.m. it took me 40 minutes to travel from Wack Wack Golf to my house nearby in North Greenhills!"

The Department of Transportation and Communications estimates that our chronic traffic-congestion problem directly and indirectly costs the Philippine economy P140 billion a year. I believe it is actually much more. What about the huge costs in health and the emotional and social quality of life?

Here are some of my suggestions to our so-called "leaders" for solving our traffic problem:

• Privatize and publicly bid out traffic enforcement and management along the whole of EDSA, even to a foreign group from the US or Europe, if necessary! All collected traffic-violation fines and other revenues can be shared with the government yearly. Let our police force concentrate on running after crooks, not collecting "kotong" (bribes) from traffic violators who should all be fined, jailed or sent for forced re-education. Let us first make EDSA a showcase of order – a minor miracle that would spark revolutionary changes elsewhere!

• Undertake a comprehensive study of our chronic flooding, then let us decisively solve this age-old problem which causes nightmarish traffic paralyses in many streets and thoroughfares. Whatever happened to all the so-called "flood control tax" money collected for decades by various governments? How come floods in Metro Manila have not yet been controlled, even during the slightest rain showers?

• Compel all traffic violators – no exceptions for so-called VIPs, their underlings or kin – to pay stiff fines, undergo psychiatric exams and attend forced re-education classes in traffic rules and common courtesy. Any drunk-driving violators should be banned from driving forever. There should be no democracy and Christian charity – only iron-fisted will – in enforcing draconian traffic discipline!

• I volunteer to personally handcuff and help jail all VIPs, their underlings, and the numerous "fake VIPs" who worsen our traffic mess with noisy sirens and flashy blinkers on their limousines, gas-guzzling SUVs and the vehicles of their security escorts. Only the legitimately elected incumbent President, foreign heads of state, or medical ambulances should be allowed this privilege – no one else! We are supposed to be a modern constitutional democracy. How can we allow our so-called "public servants" in government to wreak havoc on our streets with impunity like datus in a feudal society?

• Outlaw, totally phase out and smash into scrap metal all the old and environmentally inefficient vehicles nationwide to minimize traffic mishaps, lessen pollution and prevent vehicle breakdowns that worsen traffic chaos!

• Create one-way streets everywhere similar to major urban centers Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei, Beijing and Manhattan, Adriatico Street in Malate and Ongpin Street in Binondo, as well as some Makati streets. Many of our roads are too narrow. Shouldn’t they be one-way streets?

• Expand Metro Manila’s mass transit system, and add new routes. Why don’t we build our first subway system and a sky train similar to that in once notoriously traffic-congested Bangkok? Why can’t government build more, safer, less crowded, cleaner, more reliable, frequent, convenient, cheaper mass-transit systems to lessen the use of cars and ease traffic congestion?

• Expand our tollways and pave our national roads. Thailand reportedly has 333 kilometers of tollways and 98 percent of their national roads are paved. Why, in the Philippines, do we reportedly have only 146 kilometers of tollways while only 70 percent of our national roads are paved? Thailand reportedly spends five to six percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to develop infrastructure. Why do we allow the Philippine government to spend only two to three percent of GDP every year on notoriously inadequate or substandard infrastructure that chokes our economic productivity and progress? With so much pork barrel being quarreled over by our politicos, why do we still have inadequate and lousy roads?

• Implement "flexi-time" work schedules. There are many people out there, like this writer, who are night people. Since the government devised two or three sets of schedules for millions of public-school kids – morning, afternoon, and night classes – due to the chronic shortage of public-school classrooms, can’t our government and private sector also experiment on this to ease traffic daily?

• Ride bicycles! It’s not only in China where you have efficient and healthy bike lanes; societies like Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Ireland, the Canadian province of Quebec and various US states also have mandatory bicycle lanes. A "Bicycle Boulevard" is another on-road bicycle facility gaining momentum in the United States. California cities like Berkeley, Palo Alto, and Napa, all have bicycle boulevards. How come none of our politicos ever proposed in congress the creation of bicycle lanes in our cities so we can enjoy huge savings on imported fossil fuels, produce less pollution and encourage mass exercise?

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Among the feedback we got in reaction to last Monday’s column were tourist complaints like Paul Hengy’s, who lost his wallet and French passport; British tourist Peter Parris, who complains that some Manila police extorted money from him outside a nightclub; a tourist who complained that an airport immigration official got a US$100 bill from his wallet; as well as Chinese tourist Shi Ji Rong, an engineer whose belt bag with money, camera, cellphone, passport and plane tickets were stolen by two guys on the escalator of a major shopping mall. I challenge our politicians to manifest their genuine concern for the Philippine tourism industry by immediately passing a law increasing punishments for crimes against tourists!

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Thanks for all your messages. Comments, suggestions, jokes and criticisms are welcome at willsoonflourish@gmail.com or wilson_lee_flores@yahoo.com.