Cosmetic

Tremble in your shoes and prepare for Armageddon. It has just been announced that Edsa, this paradise of congestion, will undergo two years of “rehabilitation.”

Edsa, we all know, is the boulevard of all our broken dreams. It is the icon of all that is wrong with the manner the National Capital Region has been governed the last eight decades. It is the reason why, apart from having the world’s worst airport, we have the world’s worst traffic flow.

Like the entire metropolitan tangle Edsa is supposed to serve, everything along this avenue happens as an afterthought. We have a substandard light rail line that not only eats up scarce road space, it also needs to be supplemented by a bus “carousel” that plies the exact same route as the rail line. Furthermore, this “carousel” forces commuters to walk long distances and board in the middle of the road.

We have a pedestrian crossing so elevated it is nicknamed “Stairway to Heaven.” One needs to be a mountaineer to climb it. In so many years, I have never seen one pedestrian using this hurdle.

Over the years, we allowed huge malls to crowd the avenue, further restricting traffic flow. To compound that, we allowed dozens of high density condominium buildings to line this avenue. The car and pedestrian traffic these buildings create will further jam the avenue. There is no way any more road space could be carved out to ease traffic movement.

The whole length of Edsa, from Caloocan to Pasay, is an obstacle course. Road space is carved out for the “carousel.” In addition, two lanes are reserved for U-turning vehicles. On the margins, half a lane is reserved for non-existent bicycles. Half a lane denied is a whole lane made useless.

Therefore, in many portions, Edsa has been reduced to a two-lane road. This is especially distressing in portions where construction has been going on for many years, such as the delayed “central station.” Construction materials spill into what is left of the road space and allowed to litter for months.

All through the length of Edsa, heavy concrete barriers have been installed in tight formation. They are sturdy enough to stop a tank. Unlighted, they are a hazard for all motorists at night.

The flyovers and underpasses built along Edsa are all seriously substandard. They serve as bottlenecks at all hours.

To further compound things, we have adopted this inane “number-coding scheme” supposedly to reduce traffic volume by denying vehicle owners their right to use the road. This scheme encouraged car owners to maintain an old second car to use when the main one is banned.

Therefore, the scheme does not actually reduce vehicular volume on the streets. What it does is to cause the side roads to be clogged with parked “second” cars. From time to time, the MMDA launches campaigns to clear the side streets – an exercise in futility. The clogged side streets deny alternative routes to the hell that is Edsa.

It is time to trash this “number-coding” scheme – not the least because it is inane. The number of cars in the metropolis has nearly doubled in an effort to circumvent this stupid scheme.

At the onset, we were told that the “rehabilitation” of Edsa will involve adding an asphalt overlay to smoothen driving. But if traffic is not moving anyway, this hardly matters.

Now we are told the Guadalupe bridge, linking Makati and Mandaluyong, will need to be retrofitted to avert collapse. That engineering job will take two years.

Then we are told that we need six more bridges across the Pasig River that cuts through Metro Manila. This will take even more years.

I live astride Edsa. Over the years, I endured congestion due to the construction of flyovers and underpassses. Then I endured intermittent “re-blocking” of many parts of this road. For a decade, the “central station” was being constructed amidst corporate wars over its naming. It is still incomplete and the loop connecting LRT-1 and MRT-3 is still not closed – two decades after president GMA badgered her officials to get it done.

To this day, the point where Edsa intersects with North Avenue is a complete mess of uncoordinated construction activity, building material eating up the scarce road space and a U-turn slot compounding the flow of vehicles coming out of the two malls. This is not a bottleneck. It is an obstructed siphon.

Recall how the southern part of Metro Manila was cut off from the northern part when the rail line and the flyovers were being built. When this incarnation of Edsa’s “rehabilitation” begins, we have the small consolation of having the Skyway to bridge the two parts of this megalopolis.

The Skyway is the result of San Miguel’s foresight rather than forward planning by our bureaucrats. It began as an unsolicited proposal and suffered undue delays due to our destructive politics. In the next few years, this elevated road will save us.

I have seen the scale model of a second-level toll road Ramon Ang is proposing for Edsa. It resembles a Lego construction that may be quickly snapped together the moment the authorities consent to it. The bureaucrats are dragging their feet, of course.

Unless new road space is added, the “rehabilitation” of Edsa will be merely cosmetic.