Solon wants EDSA, C5 as one-way roads in new proposal

Samar 1st District Representative Edgar Mary Sarmiento has a very ‘drastic’ proposal to alleviate the worsening traffic situation in the metro: make major highways EDSA, C5 Road, and parts of Roxas Boulevard ‘one-way, all-way’ roads.

Photo: Carl Lamiel/YugaTech

Under his proposal, he wants to make these roads one way — EDSA will have all lanes southbound from Caloocan to Pasay with two-direction service roads dedicated for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, all drivers from the southern parts of the metro can use C5 lanes as it will also be Northbound from end-to-end, and parts of Roxas Boulevard passing through C-3 and C-4 will be dedicated to just one directional flow. Sarmiento resembles this model to New York’s style of having one-way main roads to ease congestion and promote better traffic flow.

“Our traffic situation is a multi-dimensional problem that has evolved and accrued through the years. While other countries in the region opted for tenement buildings and railway systems, we followed the American model of bungalows and highways. So we cannot just blame one cause alone, like lack of discipline among drivers or the presence of colorum PUVs plying our roads.

EDSA was built in the 1940s when the population in Metro Manila was only 1.7 million. Seventy-seven years later, the most needed infrastructure to support a rapidly growing metropolis and population – now totaling around 13 million in the National Capital Region – were never proportionately built for one reason or another,” Sarmiento said in a press release to various publications.

In addition, the solon is also urging the government to create a dedicated BRT in EDSA to supplement the existing MRT-3 railway as the latter undergoes periodic maintenance. Under this measure, buses will no longer be allowed to ply through EDSA and will instead be contained on two terminals at the northern and southern part of the region. “The BRT buses will follow a unified bus dispatching system. This will eliminate the problem of undisciplined bus drivers because there will no longer be competition or overtaking since the different bus companies are already assured of the profit,” Sarmiento said.

Source: Manila Bulletin