Roxas: Move people, not vehicles

There is happy news for the people of Metro Manila this Holy Week, which is supposed to be full of sadness. They will no longer have to suffer the calvary of traffic jams, at least in the metropolis’ principal streets. The elevated rails—MRT and LRT lines 1 and 2—will be able to carry more passengers in the near future. The government will buy more trains and coaches so that commuters will no longer be packed like sardines aboard them. The government has allotted P64 billion for the project which includes improvement of the rails.

The bearer of this good news was Transportation Secretary Mar Roxas himself, who was the principal guest at the Kapihan sa Manila at the Diamond Hotel last Monday. This is the first time that Roxas accepted an invitation to a breakfast forum. But Metro residents don’t have to wait long for the traffic jams to disappear, although it would take some time for the trains and coaches to arrive here. In a few days, the streets in the metropolis would be almost deserted and one can zip from Quezon City to Makati in 20 minutes, a trip that usually takes one to two hours.

What miracle will make this possible? Answer: The miracle of Holy Week. On this week, Metro Manilans will flee to their favorite vacation spots and leave the metropolis to those who cannot afford or do not want to join the annual herd migration to the provinces. So the streets will be free of traffic. The vehicles will be crawling on the highways leading to the vacation spots, their passengers sweltering in the hot sun.

At the end of the week, the direction of the caravan of vehicles will be reversed as the vacationists, tired and dirty, begin coming home. They would need a few days to rest from their vacations before they are refreshed enough to go back to work.

But let’s go back to Secretary Roxas and the coming miracle of less traffic jams in urban areas. Roxas explained that we have too many vehicles on too few streets. Every year, 110 new vehicles are added to those already on the streets, but very few new streets are being constructed, he said. That makes the car manufacturers very happy, but where are you going to put all those additional vehicles?

Roxas’ answer is to move people, not vehicles. The present government’s emphasis is a mass transit system, such as the elevated rails, hence the generous budget for them.

The original plan for the elevated rails was to have parking lots at every station so that motorists can leave their vehicles there and transfer to the elevated rails. That never happened because, one, the concessionaires cut costs by not going through the construction of the parking lots, and, two, the rails were overtaken by their swift success. Why shouldn’t they be? The fares are very cheap and the trips are fast, with no traffic jams, no floods.

Soon, the rails were overflowing with passengers, but the private concessionaire is reluctant to spend more money to buy more trains and coaches. Why should it? Its income is guaranteed by the government, which subsidizes the fare of every passenger. So much so that the administration of President Aquino is now thinking of reducing the subsidy.

That made the riding public angry. That subsidy does not come from the government but from the taxes paid by the people, they said. It is only proper that some of those taxes go back to them in the form of services. Almost all the railroads in the world are subsidized, whether it is in rich nations like the United States and the European countries, or in poor nations like India and Russia. Here, the railroads are the primary means of transportation.

Why should taxpayers in Mindanao and the North subsidize the transportation costs of people in Metro Manila? the government countered. Because Metro Manilans also subsidize the aid to the provinces during calamities and other needs, Metro residents said. We don’t begrudge them that. That is why the government collects taxes from everybody—so these can be spent for those in need.

So the government retreated and suspended the increase in passenger fares in the elevated rails.

When the rails—which include the Philippine National Railways (PNR), particularly its commuter trains—are transporting enough passengers cheaply and quickly, fewer and fewer people would take the buses and the jeepneys, and they would either have to go to the provinces, where they are urgently needed, or go bankrupt.

An efficient PNR will help greatly in reducing traffic congestion in Metro Manila because people and cargo going from north to south, and vice versa, no longer have to pass through the metropolis since they have no business going there. They pass through there because there is no other way to go north to south and south to north.

Which takes us to those lumbering buses from the provinces that, although they are provincial buses, add to the chaos because they have terminals within the metropolis. They will now have to stop outside city limits where there will be integrated terminals, one in the north and another in the south, said Secretary Roxas. City buses will then take the passengers into the inner cities.

Also, we are not taking advantage of the seas and waterways surrounding us. We are an archipelago, and ferryboats should be one of the primary means of transportation, which it was in the old days. Look at Bangkok: It’s a modern city but boats in the rivers are still a primary means of transportation. Let us learn from the lessons of other countries.