I honestly think that the “driver-only car ban” on Edsa is another harebrained idea the Metro Manila Development Authority has come up with. It is always quick to blame the traffic mess on that worn-out excuse: sheer volume of vehicles. But to date, it has miserably failed to keep bus drivers from creating choke points and being “pasaway” most of the time on that highway. We still see them crisscrossing and blocking lanes at will and with impunity.
Even without that ban, private motorists would have gladly avoided Edsa and taken secondary routes were it not for the irrefragable fact that the so-called “kings of the road” (jeepneys) have continued to be a menace by making terminals out of many parts of those roads at will, and without the MMDA making any serious and sustained effort to ease the flow of traffic in those parts. Worse, it has become blind to the narrowing of those routes due to illegal parking on both sides.
STEPHEN L. MONSANTO, Quezon City