Travelling in traffic gridlocked Metro Manila has become a way of life for us daily commuters and motorists, especially during peak hours. Fortunately, it’s school vacation period here in our country so there are less vehicles on the road. But the heat of the summer season adds to our travails if we are caught in the middle of standstill traffic.
Our Starweek editor Doreen Yu suffered heat stroke after driving for almost two hours in stalled traffic jams in supposed alternate routes from Greenhills, San Juan City to Port Area in Manila last Friday. Although driving an air-conditioned car, Doreen said it was like sitting in a parking lot where all stalled vehicles slowly inch their way to the nearest exit. She found out to her horror later that the traffic mess in areas she passed through was largely due to unannounced construction projects.
The traffic situation in Metro Manila is also a problem in many other highly urbanized areas that we saw and experienced in France and the United Kingdom. Together with a group of selected editors from major national newspapers in the Philippines, we were invited to an “exposure” trip to France and the UK that was organized by the Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC). We really do not need to go far to see traffic jams to justify a junket abroad.
But the infrastructure giant MPIC — which owns the Manila North Tollways Corp. (MNTC) — showed us international benchmarks on how they intend to help further improve traffic movement in Metro Manila in new connector road projects they are embarking on. Through foreign partners like Egis Projects S.A., MNTC operates and maintains the 86.7-kilometer North Luzon Expressway (NLEX). The France-based multinational company Egis is engaged in the operations and maintenance of motorways (or highways as we call them) in 16 countries, including the Philippines.
MNTC president Rodrigo Franco was quoted saying last Monday that MPIC has started negotiations with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for the terms of reference on the proposed Swiss challenge on the road connector from NLEX all the way to the 60-km South Luzon Expressway (SLEX). The original proposal of the NLEX-SLEX connector road project costs about P18 billion.
Franco earlier disclosed the MNTC revised the alignment of the much-delayed NLEX-SLEX connector road due to the North-South rail project being undertaken by the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC). The proposed 653-kilometer North-South Line covers Metro Manila to Legazpi City in Albay. It consists of commuter railway operations between Tutuban and Calamba and long haul railway operations between Tutuban and Legazpi. It also includes extended long haul rail operations on the branch line between Calamba and Batangas and extension between Legazpi and Matnog.
In Switzerland, instead of taking the motorway from Basel to Chiasso, every year 100,000 trucks cross the Swiss Alps by train called the “Rolling Highway.” The Rolling Highway is a key part of Switzerland’s transit traffic policy and represents an economical and environmentally responsible alternative for transiting Switzerland and its Alps. The Swiss experience shows it offers safe and cost-effective travel during the day and night. The Rolling Highway allows freight trucks transit through the Alps despite Switzerland’s ban on commercial vehicle movement at night and on Sundays – round the clock, throughout the year and in both directions.
This is the kind of inter-modal projects that could really ease traffic flow in Metro Manila clogged up most of the time by 20-wheeler container trucks. Motorways in France are having the same problems now with the recovery of the market and inter-trade among European Union member-states.
In a briefing we had with Egis executives in France led by Yannick Mallet, managing director of Routalis – their main partner in motorways operations and maintenance – we learned about French government plans to tap their channels or waterways as alternate routes for transport trucks.
While cars dominate the vehicle population paying to pass through their motorways, Mallet noted, a large chunk of vehicle traffic in motorways are trucks. In fact, 21 percent of vehicles passing through motorways are trucks. Thus, the bulk of toll collected come from trucks, or 43 percent of their annual earnings, Mallet said.
This, he explained, is because trucks of whatever size pay 120 euros each time they pass while cars pay only about 24 euros. This is to compensate for damage on the road surface caused by heavy trucks. Under their concession contract, Mallet pointed out, they are required to resurface the motorways every ten years. In France, Mallet told us, motorways don’t impose weight limits on trucks.
Mallet disclosed reported roll-on, roll-off (RORO) plans for trucks in ferry channels all over France. However, since it requires huge amount of investments, the plans are still on the drawing board. Like light bulb idea that lit up atop my head, methinks truck RORO plans could also work to decongest Metro Manila roads and ports using Pasig River and Manila Bay.
Speaking during a recent public hearing at the Senate, Secretary to the Cabinet Jose Rene Almendras announced plans of the government on the construction of railroads direct to the ports as well as connecting roads to address growing volume of vehicles and traffic. Almendras is concurrent chairman of the Cabinet cluster on port congestion.
Almendras revealed there is a DPWH initiative to find an alignment or an elevated spur way into Metro Manila ports. “That is challenging and we are looking at waterways which is controversial,” Almendras told the Senate hearing.
He claimed the current situation shows that the truck ban in Metro Manila is not the answer to the traffic problem but a free flow of trucks may actually be a better solution.
But with less than 14 months left of the term of President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III, it seems these projects would just remain on the drawing board. There is not much movement of these projects clogged up somewhere in the bureaucratic maze in the Aquino administration’s “tuwid na daan.”
Hopefully, whoever becomes the new President would pick up and get these inter-modal transport projects to finally take off all the way to completion for real free flow of traffic.
By Marichu A. Villanueva
