The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority has defended the ongoing stricter implementation of the yellow lane policy on EDSA, saying it is not an experiment nor is it related to the planned ban on provincial buses.
“That yellow lane policy has long been put in place. It has nothing to do with our provincial bus ban,” MMDA Traffic and Transport Zone Head Bong Nebrija said in a television interview on Saturday.
“This is an existing policy. We are not experimenting here,” Nebrija added.
Unusually heavy traffic was experienced on EDSA this week as the MMDA enforced the yellow lane scheme strictly.
“We will discipline these bus drivers who offload passengers in areas that are not loading and unloading zones,” Nebrija said.
“It is sad that these criticisms against us come from people who should be supporting us. We are not implementing a science experiment on EDSA—this is an existing policy.”
Earlier, Senator Grace Poe, head of the Senate public services committee, said she will question transport officials on Tuesday over the “hellish” traffic that choked EDSA.
Concerned sectors were also called to a public hearing on Aug. 13 to explain the gridlock on EDSA amid the test run for the EDSA provincial bus ban.
“We will thresh out all these issues in a productive dialogue where all stakeholders will have a voice and will be part of the solution,” Poe said.
Senator Francis Pangilinan, for his part, took the cudgels for commuters and called on the MMDA to stop its “anti-family, anti-progress” experiments on EDSA.
“Think of the commuters’ circumstances in the experiments to ease traffic jams,” he said. “We ask not only for consideration but also for the use of logic.”
