In Metro Manila, where a two to three hour non-moving gridlock turns EDSA and surrounding streets into gigantic parking lots, our national government is doing its best to find solutions. Ban on provincial buses, color-coding, last number scheduling. Now, a “NO GARAGE, NO SALE” law. Someday, no sale of NEW vehicles, unless OLD ones are retired, like Singapore. Metro Manila has simply too many people — people who should be lured back to their respective home-provinces.
Metro Davao’s traffic problem is not quite as bad — YET — but soon it will be, sooner than we think. Unless, we do something, NOW.
NO PARKING on street-sides. Our city administration should build a HI-RISE PAY-TO-PARK building on top of Osmeña or Rizal Park; or the barbeque plaza nearby. No building should get a city building permit without the right number of parking spaces for its employees. A case in point: the new DC Water District building in Matina. Today, their employees park in 4 street-sides in Juna — tying up traffic there and exasperating residents. How a near-billion pesos of Taxpayers’ money were spent for such a poorly-designed building. Hopefully, the DCWD management does a better job managing our water resources. That’s why I favor the creation of a Department of Water Resources. But that’s another issue for a later column.
Now, back to our TRAFFIC PROBLEM.
A. ONE-WAY STREETS: Going NORTH, Mac-Arthur HWY-junction Quimpo, Bankerohan, T.Claudio to J.P. Laurel to Juction Castillo (Azuela Cove). Going SOUTH, Junction Castillo to Quezon BLVD to Quimpo. The secondary roads (beside the 1-way primary roads) would also be converted to 1-way streets. Imagine the roads within Obrero going 1-way east-west, north-south.
B. In the near-future, we will have the MONORAIL (Udenna), the Mindanao Railroad, and new point-to-point city busses. And perhaps a SKYWAY on top of Garcia Highway.
