AT SIX o’clock on a Thursday evening the most important road in Manila, known as EDSA, has become a car park. Five lanes heading north and five heading south are clogged with cars and buses, many of them pointlessly honking their horns. “Traffic in Manila is not ordinary”, says a taxi driver, wearily. He means that it is extreme, not that it is rare.
When people meet in Manila, they talk about traffic. “It rules everything”, says Julia Nebrija, a cycling advocate. Some stories are funny, like the one about the transport official, Francis Tolentino, who missed a live TV interview because he was stuck on EDSA, or the one about the archbishop who was so fed up with one jam that he got out of his car and started directing traffic. Business people tell more worrying tales. As commutes grow longer, productivity is suffering, says Jaime Ysmael of the Ayala Corporation, a conglomerate.
Filipinos will vote for a new president in May, and the candidates are trying to blame each other for the parlous state of Manila’s roads and public transport. The very fact that one of them, Manuel Roxas, used to be transport secretary was held against him...Continue reading
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