EDITORIAL - Keep them moving

By most accounts, traffic moved faster along EDSA yesterday as members of the Philippine  National Police Highway Patrol Group took over traffic management at six chokepoints along the busy thoroughfare. People reported seeing their daily commute shortened by 20 to 25 percent – not dramatic, but still significant considering the challenges of untangling the massive gridlocks in Metro Manila.

Traffic managers have only one task: to keep vehicular flow moving. This cannot happen when designated stops are turned into terminals by buses and jeepneys, with traffic enforcers looking the other way for reasons the public can only guess. Vehicular traffic also moves slowly when much of the road is occupied by vendors.

Yesterday the HPG members, fresh from days of brushing up on traffic laws and management, waved away buses that tried to linger at designated stops. EDSA was cleared of vendors particularly at the Balintawak junction. The results were evident in the improved traffic flow, which begged the question: why couldn’t those basic measures be done before?

Rush hour traffic yesterday remained slow. Metro Manila’s population and vehicle volume continue to grow with no corresponding expansion of the road network. More roads in gated subdivisions will have to be opened to the public, as Parañaque is starting to do. The government must also do more to encourage greater use of alternative ports to decongest the Port of Manila.

Several answers to the traffic problem are for the long term, such as the construction of a modern railway system to handle cargo from the Port of Manila. Everyone agrees that there must be fewer vehicles on the road – but people will leave their cars at home only when an efficient mass transportation is in place. Here the administration has failed, with the Metro Rail Transit and Light Rail Transit systems in fact suffering serious deterioration over the past four years. So-called emergency procurements that may lead to congressional probes and criminal indictments can further derail any effort to upgrade the railway services.

Deploying cops to take over traffic management from enforcers of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, whose chairman is busy trying to raise his national profile for a Senate bid, had some encouraging results yesterday. Now the objective must be to sustain the improvement.