QUEZON City, Philippines (January 22) – The Metro Manila Development Authority or MMDA’s implementation of ‘yellow lane’ policy is actually, not that new. It was done before, during the time of former MMDA chairman Bayani Fernando, and it looks like the present management of MMDA didn’t learn any lesson from those yester years, since during that time, the “yellow lane” policy achieved only little success. Now that there are ten times the number of vehicles roaming all over the EDSA, why did the MMDA think that said policy will still work.
EDSA is a hell-hole to all. From commuters, drivers, private users and bike riders (the sidewalk bike-lanes are worthy to be called “trash bins”). Sticking a piece of bandage to gangrene won’t heal anything. According to the Philippine National Police-Highway Patrol Group (PNP-HPG), the travel time of the buses was reduced by 30 minutes, but how about the private lanes?
Another problem is the congestion that is possible when vehicles coming from the side streets enter and exit EDSA yellow lane. There will be much difficulty in merging with any of the lanes, and can cause confusing jams.
In my point of view, it is the heavy number of private vehicles that cause the traffic, not the buses. Whenever they see an opening in the bus lane, they try to go in with no care at all. Many times they’re observed overtaking and cutting into different lanes. Three lanes were already given to them per bound. If we could only eliminate the “one person, one car” mentality in a blink, the sight of EDSA would be one straight image of discipline. Let’s say 60 passengers, including the standees, in just 1 vehicle. There would be no more ‘almost forever’ queues and jams, plus lesser emissions of pollution.
Secondly, the lack of roads in Metro Manila makes everything look like a bottleneck. It has only 3.5% of all roads nationwide. Compressing 2.5 million strong private vehicles is just plainly outrageous and crazy.
For the buses, quick loading and unloading should be applied, with the help of the people in HPG and MMDA.The jostling with other rival buses is still noticeable, but can be reduced by the authorities, it’s their job. The bus operators and drivers should cooperate, they’ve already given a special lane. It’s their responsibility to obey the rules and regulations, unless they want to go back mixed-up with the smaller ones.
Yellow lane is a Band-Aid solution, no doubt. It may be an innovation to us, but in other countries, it’s already an old trick. Its common rarity and dull brilliance makes it temporary. Maintain and improve the measures given to high occupancy vehicles, while private vehicles are the ones that should be given more attention and discipline.
(written by Rex Felix C. Salvador, edited by Jay Paul Carlos, additional research by Vince Alvin Villarin)