Number-coding is band-aid traffic solution
Working under the notion that no one has a monopoly of knowledge, I always imagine that all ideas have their own worth. Desiderata put it succinctly - "even the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story." When a man presents a thought, any thought, for that matter, I assume that it so carries with it some sense that it is not proper for another person to call him names or ascribe his idea as worthless.
Indeed, it is not my nature to react violently to ideas that I find discomforting. I simply avoid banging my head against even the more despicable thoughts. In the event that I notice a flaw in a proposal, I, at the very least, would rather hold my acerbic tongue and instead suggest to look at it in another angle.
Having said that, I open my mind to the proposal of a group called the Visayas Drivers Transport Service Cooperative. It was published in the papers yesterday. According to this association, they prefer to implement, here in our Cebu City traffic system, a vehicular management tool in EDSA.
One such thing is the number-coding system. We are aware that vehicles with plate numbers ending in 1 and 2, are not allowed to use EDSA at certain hours on Mondays. 3 and 4, on Tuesdays, and so forth and so on. The theory is that for each day, a certain group of vehicles cannot use EDSA in order to free more space. Whoever conceptualized this idea, more than two decades ago, imagined that it was one tremendous way of improving traffic flow and avoiding, in the process, traffic jams.
To me, it worked for a while. Many families then, owned but one vehicle each. They were forced to keep their transport units at home on those days that the plate numbers matched the ban. There thousands of them that were not allowed to ply the EDSA route. But, in no time at all, they found a way to go around the system. The same families bought other vehicles. And more. So at present, EDSA is full of all forms of transport units everyday.
In other words, the number-coding system was but a stop gap measure. It was useful for a time being but did not offer a lasting solution to an ever increasing problem. To apply it in Cebu is also putting in place a band-aid type of cure which might probably be good for but a fleeting duration.
If our leaders want a better remedy to the mounting traffic jams in Metro Manila as well as here in Metro Cebu, there are urgent and priority laws to craft, approve and implement. The foremost and perhaps the most difficult is that which limits the number of ownership of private cars per family. I will take it up hereunder and reserve for a later day, those other important legislative proposals like discouraging the continued use of old cars and disallowing the importation of the so-called surplus engines and vehicles.
How many of the households today, especially the elite families, keep a fleet of cars in their garages? Check the homes in gated subdivisions and you will realize that there are actually more cars than families can use. A father drives to office in his own unit while the mother uses another. Each of their children goes to work or school in separate cars while their helper does her marketing in still one more unit. That does not count the vans they use for family outings and other vehicle types for specific purposes like going to the farm.
It may be good for Philippine economy, and for our environment if we keep to a minimum the number of vehicles a family can possess.
In our example, a family can use a car to bring the children to school, from where the next destination is the mother's work station and eventually, the father's office. A smaller number of vehicles requires a lesser amount of fuel and brings down our cost of oil import. At the same time, it pares down the number of cars converging on our roads and effectively, reduce the occurrence of traffic jams.
Immediately, the foreseeable problem is in the implementation. Many families will try to find ways to go around the limitation. Our legislators must be up to the challenge in making sure that the law is clear not only in the words that limit but more importantly in the spirit that gives it life.
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