Christmas is fast approaching, and everyone is rushing to stock up on holiday decors, assembling their Christmas trees, and buying Christmas presents. Our family started transitioning to a Christmas-themed home as early as October, replacing the regular sofa pillows with green and red ones, gathering a few holiday decors from last year, and so much more to give our home a gentle and welcoming feel. Of course, we also need new decors. And so do hundreds of thousands of others in Metro Manila. Where better else to purchase all these needs under one roof but a mall.
It sounds simple and straightforward enough when you realize those thousands of others are flocking to those malls on the exact time and day (I can’t stress payday Friday enough). And because Filipinos love their cars, that translates to the same number of vehicles plying our capital region’s limited road network.
Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue (EDSA) is the de-facto symbolism of the poor state of traffic people living in Metro Manila experience on a daily basis. And then there’s the bus and Grab commuters. And that doesn’t even include LRT/MRT riders since the railway is a completely separate entity.
I began driving a few months ago. Sometimes, I drive myself to and from school, since I live in Quezon City. And I can say, from first hand experience, that cruising in rush hour EDSA traffic, especially on a payday Friday, is like a horror story. That might be an understatement in itself. Living nightmare might be a more appropriate term. Taking 1.5 hours from Chino Roces to Rockwell is simply absurd. Add another hour and you’d be in Megamall. Talk about progress.
Christmas is, simply put, a popular time when more Filipinos hit the roads. This traffic problem that we’re experiencing is not only because of overpopulation, but also because the country’s biggest malls are all found close to, or literally just beside EDSA. SM Megamall, Mall of Asia, North EDSA, Cubao, Glorietta, Shangri-La. Megamall and Cubao are especially notorious for being a major chokepoint, with traffic snaking all the way to Magallanes, Makati.
Heavy traffic is no new thing in our country. In fact, it’s become the new normal in this mega city of ours. But the more it is considered ‘’normal’’, the less the government will feel compelled to change the status quo.
The current situation isn’t sustainable, in fact paralyzing, for the next few years. If the people in power don’t step up their game and think of effective measures to mitigate the problem, we might just see the same scenario, even worse, in the future.
Story by Kobe Ho
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