Horror gridlock

Will we ever see the day the metro’s traffic woes are solved, or at least reduced to a manageable, minimally disruptive level? Not with the way the present crop of politicians, city officers and road managers are addressing the problem.

Last Friday, a horror show unfolded at the North Luzon Expressway as a monster traffic jam quickly evolved into an hours-long gridlock that stranded thousands of vehicles and forced many commuters to abandon rides and walk on the superhighway just to get away from the unmoving mass and make it to their schools and workplaces. The “parking lot” stretched from Meycauayan in Bulacan to Balintawak in Caloocan City.

As usual, government agencies fell all over themselves in blaming one another for the massive standstill. NLEx said the “one truck lane policy at Manila area” was to blame, before taking back that claim hours later with the blithe tweet to “please disregard earlier tweet regarding MMDA implementing one truck lane policy.” The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority was likewise quick to toss the blame somewhere else. “The problem lies in the congested cargoes inside Port of Manila,” said its chair, Francis Tolentino. “It has nothing to do with any truck policy. Some are barking on the wrong tree.”

Never mind the mangled language, even if some will argue that part of the problem is in fact the abysmal communication skills of these government agencies to explain their ever-shifting policies with clarity and detail. Ordinary citizens already harried by horrific conditions on the road, from the insanity-inducing traffic to the decrepit, congested state of the MRT/LRT, couldn’t care less at this point which particular statute or regulation is making their lives hell, or which government agency deserves the bigger blame. All they want is relief from the daily misery, and a semblance of proof that those tasked to manage the roads do understand their plight and are doing something to ease the pain.

That’s not the message you get from the shockingly cavalier official attitude that still prevails despite the multiple breakdowns on the traffic and public transport fronts. The NLEx standstill happened on Friday, and the next day the MMDA announced the formation of another “task force” that would reportedly deploy around 200 MMDA personnel to oversee traffic operations in the area. But of course. Far be it for the public to expect that the MMDA and the cities of Manila and Caloocan (the target of Malacañang’s finger-pointing, saying it enforced rerouting without any advice) would coordinate at some basic level and plan things ahead before implementing any new road scheme.

Manila’s truck ban, for instance, has led to serious consequences largely unforeseen by Mayor Joseph Estrada and his gung-ho team in their single-minded zeal to decongest their city’s streets and, along the way, earn instant brownie points from their constituents. The severe limitations on the movement of cargo trucks has delayed deliveries all over, raised the prices of commodities, choked the ports even more with cargo piling up—and now, ironically, might even lead to Manila losing another historical link to its past.

With traffic congestion metastasizing in the port area, the bright boys of the Department of Public Works and Highways have proposed the demolition of the Spanish-era Anda circle, one of the few extant reminders of old Manila but which the DPWH has pronounced as having “no historical value.” Because there has been no word so far from the National Historical Commission and other heritage agencies, demolition is reportedly scheduled in two weeks. It has come to this: For meager traffic relief, Manila is willing to smother its soul.

As long as every mayor in the metropolis manages his domain as a personal fiefdom where statutes are unilaterally implemented without regard to their effects spilling over into the neighboring cities—and toothless government agencies like the MMDA are hamstrung by law from overriding the specific wishes of city executives with political agendas on their mind—Metro Manila will be in perpetual gridlock, from traffic and public transport to basic services and sanitation.

One sprawling, contiguous metropolis—and it has become a free-for-all. The NLEx horror gridlock may yet turn out to be a dress rehearsal for bigger, badder breakdowns to come.