MMDA schemes, Makati don’t mix

The experimental traffic schemes of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) are not applicable in Makati City, which is struggling to solve its own traffic congestion problem, a city official said yesterday.

"Makati has a very distinct characteristic of commuters and motorists that can’t be solve simply with the (MMDA’s) U-turn slots," Joey Salgado, officer-in-charge of the city’s Information and Community Relations Department (ICRD), told reporters yesterday.

But he conceded that Makati has a big traffic problem, what with a million vehicles a day crammed in the streets of the city, which has a very small land area at 27.36 square kilometers. This does not include its daytime population of 1.2 to 1.4 million, most of which are transients, Salgado added.

It was reported Wednesday that the MMDA would implement the U-turn slots along Buendia Avenue, a main artery of the Makati Central Business District (CBD).

But MMDA traffic chief Angelito Vergel de Dios clarified in a separate interview that the U-turn or clearway schemes would only be in the Pasay City side of Buendia, specifically the stretch from Leveriza street to Roxas Boulevard.

Vergel de Dios said the Makati City government has not allowed the MMDA’s U-turn slots because Buendia-Makati has only three lanes, which he acknowledge was too narrow for the scheme.

Motorists have long complained of the traffic congestion in the main arteries of the city, such as Buendia, Ayala Avenue, Makati Avenue, and Paseo de Roxas.

Salgado said the city government has prepared short term and long term solutions to the problem.

Among the short term solutions is the review of the city’s traffic code, which Salgado said needs updating because it was crafted in the 1950s.

The traffic code includes the schedule of fines and penalties and the system of traffic management, he said.

Another is the deployment of more traffic marshals in the streets.

Salgado said one long term solution currently being implemented is the pedestrianization of the city, a project being undertaken by the Makati Commercial Estate Association, Inc. (MACEA).

"We are discouraging people form using their cars so we are making the streets of Makati pedestrian-friendly," he said.

The pedestrian underpasses on Ayala Avenue and the classy footbridges connecting Glorietta to Greenbelt, across Makati Avenue, are part of the pedestrianization, Salgado noted.

Still on the conceptualization stage is Makati’s intracity mass rail transport system, similar to the one in Bangkok, Thailand, he said.

"The idea is to stage a link between the CBD and the farthest barangay in the city. The idea is for the EMBO (Enlisted Men’s Barrio) barangays, which have little economic activities, will also benefit from the CBD," Salgado said – Nikko Dizon