IN an interview with ANC’s Karen Davila in May, then-Transportation secretary Vince Dizon clarified President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s orders: “EDSA is the epitome of how our roads don’t work well. We have to call a spade a spade. The president has recognized that and has taken the bold and decisive step of not just rehabilitating EDSA, not just doing the usual patchwork re-blocking. We need to make EDSA friendly for everyone that uses it. And I’m not just talking about motorists. Apart from fixing the road for the motorists, we have to think about pedestrians and the commuters. The commuters are the most important users of EDSA. The president wants EDSA to be more friendly to commuters and pedestrians. We are in a position now to make EDSA safe and walkable for pedestrians.”
Today’s EDSA makes us car-dependent — a recipe for disaster. EDSA is the most important corridor in the metropolis, with many densely populated neighborhoods, business districts, markets, malls, schools and government offices along it. Yet EDSA has almost no sidewalk, just bits and pieces of a poor quality bike lane, severe crowding on rail and bus lines during rush hour and very poor road safety. The result is increasing reliance on using a private motor vehicle. Because Filipinos are compelled to buy a car or motorcycle as soon as they can afford to, the result is worsening traffic and pollution for everyone, even for those in private motor vehicles.
We need to redesign EDSA to achieve the future that we want. The EDSA of tomorrow should promote a shift in travel behavior, away from increased motorization (which exacerbates traffic and pollution) and toward more walking, cycling and public transportation. If these sustainable travel modes can become attractive options, society will benefit from improved mobility, safer travel, reduced air and noise pollution, better health and reduced climate impact.
We want an EDSA with ample and convenient public transportation that can take us efficiently to different parts of the metropolis. Already, it is possible to transfer from train to bus and travel all the way to the Mall of Asia or the Parañaque Integrated Terminal Exchange on a dedicated lane. EDSA mass transit would be even more useful if passengers could travel on the same bus to nearby cities like Valenzuela, Biñan or Dasmariñas. Passing lanes at EDSA Carousel stations (an extra lane around stations to allow buses to go past those that are loading and unloading) would enhance functionality and enable bus operators to offer express services and triple or quadruple capacity. Buses and trains would become the natural choices for anyone coming to EDSA.
EDSA should be walkable, bikeable and fully accessible for persons with disability. It is important to remember that around 15 percent of the population has some form of disability (equivalent to an estimated 16.5 million Filipinos). Every one of us, at some time or another, will have a physical incapacity. If our urban infrastructure and transportation services are not accessible for persons with disabilities, they will be unable to access basic services and economic opportunities. They will face an insurmountable barrier and be deprived of fundamental rights and freedoms. Millions of Filipinos already experience this profound injustice today.
In a metropolis where only 11.5 percent of households are car owners, it is disgraceful for EDSA to have no space for people to walk and zero accommodation for anyone with physical incapacity. Any rebuild of EDSA should therefore focus on the correction of these glaring and unlawful deficiencies.
Several laws already oblige the government to ensure that public infrastructure and services are fully accessible for persons with disability (the Accessibility Law, Magna Carta of Persons with Disability and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the Philippines has ratified). It is most unfortunate that compliance has been dismal. All of us, especially the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, will benefit from full compliance.
EDSA needs spacious, continuous sidewalks and protected bike lanes, with shade trees and greenery. On all sidewalks, there should be ramps and tactile paving. At every intersection, there should be an opportunity to cross safely at ground level, with traffic signals that are pedestrian-friendly. A walkable EDSA would enable people traveling relatively short distances (say, 5 kilometers or less) to go entirely on foot, especially if the walk can also be pleasurable. (It is only 4.5 kilometers from OneAyala to the Mall of Asia; walking along EDSA could be a real option!)
Converting a mixed traffic lane on EDSA to create a spacious sidewalk or bike lane would be a more efficient and inclusive use of road space as it would enable four to five times more people to travel in the same space — without polluting the air, without noise and in a safer and more healthful way. Preserving road space for the benefit of people in cars is a self-defeating strategy that prioritizes the least efficient and most environmentally damaging mode of travel — exactly what we have been doing for decades, to our own peril.
A walkable and bikeable EDSA, sprinkled with pocket parks, garden furniture, water fountains and clean public toilets could even become one of the places where families go for leisure and recreation. In combination with the planned esplanade that would run along the entire length of the Pasig River, a people-oriented EDSA would transform the character of our metropolis.
An EDSA rehabilitation that merely restores the pavement will only preserve a status quo that no one relishes. The Public Works and Transportation departments should work together with urgency to implement the president’s directive of creating an EDSA that is friendly for commuters and pedestrians — one that Filipinos would be proud of, a boulevard instead of an expressway.
Robert Y. Siy is a development economist, city and regional planner, and public transport advocate. He is a co-convenor of the Move As One Coalition. He can be reached at mobilitymatters.ph@yahoo.com or followed on X @RobertRsiy.
Original article: The EDSA that we need
