Additional mass transit, more highways needed

I had the pleasure of driving through CaviTEX last Sunday and despite a slightly choppy surface, I still made a 30+ kilometer drive from the reclamation area. It was a real pleasure since I was at my destination in under 40 minutes. The only real bottleneck occurred in the area near Rosario where I had to pass through a small, short and narrow bridge. Otherwise, roads were good, other motorists were behaved and the weather, despite being the sun out and blazing in all her glory, was thankfully not as mercilessly unforgiving.

Congestion and overpopulation in Metro Manila has always been a serious problem. Based on independent studies gathered through government agencies and offices, there is in fact no overpopulation in our country, but rather an over-concentration of people in key urban areas, specifically within Metro Manila. And yet some sectors of the government think and believe that there is indeed overpopulation, making our legislators hastily come up with proposed laws to alleviate overpopulation and poverty such as the controversial RH Bill.

This, however, isn’t the issue here. The real issue is that given the proper infrastructure, the Philippines can indeed have a prosperous economy. The only things government has to do are simple: keep the bad guys out, catch the ones that get in, keep building more international-spec roads, highways and bridges and stop extorting money from the average Juan, who wants to start his entrepreneurial venture, or Uncle Joe, who is bringing in fresh capital from abroad. Sounds simpler than we think, unfortunately.

So let’s focus on something motoring-related, specifically the roads and bridges and the like.

Highly dense areas need an effective means of transportation. Hence, we need more mass-rail projects that stop in more areas throughout Metro Manila. We have the existing LRT line 1 that spans Taft Avenue, servicing Manila and parts of the U-Belt area, the LRT line 2 which spans Aurora-Magsaysay Boulevard, ferrying hundreds of thousands more students to the U-Belt area, and lastly, MRT line 3, which spans Edsa carrying half a million people every day. And yet it has the capacity to increase ridership to as much as three quarters of a million daily if our legislators and the private sector stopped bickering for once who owns what and just bought more new trains. In contrast, there are almost 400,000 vehicles that ply Edsa every day. If we’re able to reduce the amount of vehicles, a large percentage of which are PUV’s and single-occupant private motorists, Edsa would be a far better place. Did you guys know that there are actually 12 proposed rail transit systems for the entire megalopolis that is Manila? If the other nine are indeed put up, everyone’s lives would be far better. I sometimes take the MRT3 going to Makati or through the Trinoma area, and I have to admit, riding up inside the MRT3, despite being packed like a can full of sardines, gives me that smug feeling as I stare at the cars and motorists stuck in traffic on Edsa.

We also need more roads to connect places far and away from each other. A good example? An elevated highway spanning the width and breadth of Laguna de Bay that will connect the province of Rizal to Muntinlupa and Laguna. Rizal is a beautiful province, especially the southeastern municipalities of Pililla, Tanay and Jala-Jala. But there’s nothing to do there, except, err, procreate.

Accessing these municipalities takes forever, thanks to narrow roads and the fact that one has to go up and down Antipolo, or around the Sierra Madre Mountain Range, which adds an easy 30 kilometers. If the vast agricultural areas of Rizal can be tapped and its fertile bounty be brought easily to Metro Manila, then Rizal would be most prosperous, families from Metro Manila can visit the natural wonders of Rizal easily and more corporate entities will invest in the province of Rizal. I beg that Gov. Jun Ynares of Rizal and Gov. ER Ejercito of Laguna can forge an agreement and start looking into building such a highway. If the CaviTEX could be accomplished, what’s stopping this highway from being done? I coin it RiLaMex, for Rizal-Laguna-Muntinlupa Expressway, or something like that.

Lastly, another highway I would like to see done is the continuation of STAR Toll, which extends itself all the way to Bicol. Now that is one ambitious project indeed for the government. And while the government is at it, perhaps they can re-surface STAR Toll itself. Currently it is plain dangerous for most cars. The moon’s surface is possibly smoother.