Removing EDSA bike lanes is the wrong thing to do

IT is a fantasy for the MMDA to claim that removing the bike lanes on EDSA will improve traffic. From decades of experience, we know that removing the bike lanes do very little as more road space for motor vehicles leads to greater motor vehicle use due to the phenomenon of induced demand. "Adding highway lanes to deal with traffic congestion is like loosening your belt to cure obesity," as Lewis Mumford put it in 1955.

With EDSA constantly choked with traffic, it makes total sense to create alternative channels to move people safely and efficiently using sustainable travel modes. This is the concept behind the EDSA Carousel. If buses on EDSA can move fast and carry many times more people on a dedicated lane than a roadway for cars, it makes sense to transform a mixed traffic lane into one for buses. At times the EDSA Busway may appear empty, but it is only because the buses have already gone ahead of everyone stuck in traffic.