Standstill traffic in Metro Manila

Last Wednesday, almost 200 representatives from the national and local government (e.g., Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, Department of Transportation, Light Rail Transit Authority), transport providers (bus companies, freight forwarders), citizen advocates (pedestrian, biking, safety advocates), and others (communications, project design and development, insurance, etc.) converged for a preliminary meetup to scope an upcoming mammoth “road and traffic” exhibition in October.

I was asked to make a presentation on “Innovations in Traffic and Parking Management” applicable to Metro Manila. In a nutshell, I suggested that the innovations that will ease the transport and traffic woes in Metro Manila are not downstream, to be found in new traffic schemes and gadgets, but upstream, in the way transport is organized and governed in the National Capital Region.

The single most important innovation that will help solve the transport problems of Metro Manila is to bring about metropolitan governance for Metro Manila, which will be the single authority for providing development and urban planning and governance especially in the areas of transport, solid waste, flood control, public order and safety, infrastructure, zoning and housing regulation for the whole metropolis. It requires a recentralization of these functions, away from the component local government units.

It is not difficult to argue for such a drastic action. If a Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) can be established short of constitutional change, a Metropolitan Manila Autonomous Regional Government (MMARG) should also be possible. In fact, the chance of success of an MMARG will infinitely be more than that of the BARMM, and as such, might provide the regional governance systems design and implementation templates that will make the latter viable.

The problem with Metro Manila is that when the Local Government Code of 1991 pushed for decentralization, a boon for all LGUs, it was a bane for Metro Manila because the appropriate level of analysis — the metropolis — was sacrificed at the altar of parochial local political ambitions.

The other innovations that would make comprehensive and long-term metropolitan transport governance possible are (1) smart city thinking—comprehensive and authoritative data-based systems for transport and housing planning and management; (2) mass public transport and ride-share and road-share arrangements scaled up commensurate to the demand; (3) smart motorists—informed, anticipatory, collaborative and disciplined road use (e.g., Waze-enabled, contactless rule enforcement); and (4) fit-for-purpose regulation private car ownership (parking space requirement, congestion pricing).

There is room for imagination, as in improving water transport. The improvement of Pasig River’s physical conditions should enable a water transport service that is as responsive, reliable, fast and safe, comparable to the Bangkok river buses. Think about it—passengers from any point in the Laguna Lake coast (Binangonan, Calamba) and Pasig River banks (Marikina, Pasig), can be interconnected.

The test for our ability to think as a nation and not only for dynastic entrepreneurships is our ability to see inclusive opportunities that come our way. For instance, this new “Pearl City” that will rise on reclaimed land in Manila Bay, will it simply be an enclave for rich business and residences, or will it also be an instrument for solving informal settlements, the lack of sanitation and horrendous traffic in Metro Manila? Maybe the looming horrors of Metro Manila life will induce a consolidation of our fragmented visions.

A Boston Consulting Group survey was conducted in August 2017 for Uber that had 7,000 respondents with ages between 18 and 65 living in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Manila, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh and Bangkok.

Metro Manila alone has more than 2.3 million vehicles daily. This volume needs parking space roughly twice the size of Makati City. The survey tells us that Manila, together with Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi and Surabaya, all have the risk of “reaching standstill levels of congestion” (less than 10 km/hour) during peak hours by 2022. If we do not watch it, Metro Manila will be THE gargantuan parking lot we all deserve.

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