MMDA subjected to a well-deserved spanking, but now what?

Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.

LAST week, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) made itself the target of widespread derision after its chairman Romando Artes floated the idea of eliminating the EDSA Carousel dedicated bus lane on the nation's busiest road. Artes' rationale for this ludicrous suggestion was that opening up an additional traffic lane to private vehicles would "relieve traffic congestion" and that doing so was justifiable because the EDSA Carousel follows the same route as the MRT-3 light rail line, so the displaced bus users could just take the train instead.

The suggestion to remove the EDSA Carousel was made during a meeting with President Marcos in Malacañang to discuss the metro area's chronic traffic congestion. In a radio interview around the same time, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla reportedly chimed in with an additional suggestion to allow motorcycles to use designated bicycle lanes, particularly along EDSA but presumably on other streets as well. Remulla's rather non-sequitur explanation for that idea was that the majority of motorcycle accidents were the result of them trying to avoid traffic. That is a completely numbskull idea — and from an official whose purview does not include traffic management anyway — but to Remulla's credit, he did acknowledge in the same interview that the ultimate goal is to improve public transportation to the point where it would be a more attractive option than driving one's vehicle in the city.

ROUGH TRADE