The car has been around since the mid-1880s.
But when Henry Ford started mass producing cars in 1909 to the tune of 650 a day, it sparked a revolution in land travel.
The assembly line production that Ford introduced reduced car prices making it more affordable to the general public and this contributed to the development of the suburbia. Today, however, the car is coming under incessant attack in the National Capital Region from some transportation advocacy groups that view the car as a major contributor to the punishing traffic congestion that everybody is experiencing.
If these groups have their way, they would prefer some constraints on car ownership.
To them, the government should increase public transportation investments and make it more efficient so that there would be less need for cars.
They are right to a certain degree because the urban development in the Metro area is a classic case of how not to do it.
If we look at how public transportation developed beginning at the turn of the 20th century, it was the trams operated by the Manila Electric Company that provided public transportation till the outbreak of the Second World War.
Considering the much smaller population of Manila and the adjoining towns at that time, public transportation during the prewar years was not only sufficient but also efficient. But with the destruction of Manila and the trams during the liberation in 1945, this gave birth to the conversion of surplus United States Army jeeps into what became the jeepney.
Since the tram operation was never revived, the jeepney took over as the principal mode of public transportation with the buses coming later.
Perhaps, the national government should seriously consider what other countries have done and transfer the country’s capital somewhere else and start from scratch to avoid all the pitfalls
of the urbanization process
Initially, the jeepney was sufficient to take care of the public transportation needs.
One reason is its versatility being the closest thing to a door to door transportation.
But as the urban sprawl started to expand rapidly due to population growth, some of the weaknesses of the jeepney as a form of mass transportation started to become apparent to government planners.
One is the limited number of passengers that the jeepney can accommodate.
Another is that the jeepney occupies a lot of road space because of their increasing number.
As a result, the LRT 1 and other rail lines that we have today were constructed. Unfortunately, the government has been slow in this area.
For instance, LRT line 7 which is now undergoing construction was supposed to have been constructed in the late 1980s but is only being done now.
The government is therefore always playing catch up.
In the area of road building, not much was also done to increase the road network.
It is only in the last two or three administrations that we saw a flurry of urban freeway constructions.
Progress, however, has been slow due to many hurdles like right of way issues.
Some projects are also being opposed by advocacy groups like the Pasig River freeway project.
In the meantime, there is an explosion of cars on the limited NCR road network making traffic congestion a serious problem.
The NCR’s road network is only around 5,000 kilometers more or less on an area of about 663 square kilometers and a population of nearly 13 million people.
These figures alone tell the magnitude of the problem at hand.
Yet, government cannot simply give up or do nothing.
This is why we see all the simultaneous transportation projects going on that will at the very least provide the public with more travel choices when completed.
Part of the long term solution is to encourage people to relocate further from the urban center to lessen population density to a more tolerable level.
Fortunately, this is slowly happening with private land developers taking the lead by going further away from the metro area.
Most of these new land developments will not be serviced by public transportation.
This is, therefore, where the car can play an important role.
Owning a car will allow families to relocate because the car can take care of the many trips that public transportation cannot meet or satisfy.
Public transport advocates may not like it but public transportation cannot take care of all trips required by the public.
Emergency and leisure trips are but some of the examples.
But rail transportation must still have to be expanded faster to allow the public to move more efficiently within the Metro area or going in and out of it.
I do agree with the public transport advocates view about more public transportation investments.
What I do not agree to is this will have to be done at the expense of owning a car.
The mobility problems being currently experienced in the Metro area is not solely due to the car but also because of the inability of the government to integrate all the available transportation out there – be it public or private – into a cohesive, efficient and coordinated working system.
This is called efficient traffic and transportation management.
What we see instead is an inefficient and seemingly chaotic public transportation system. This should be the focus of attention.
Unfortunately, whatever actions the government takes to alleviate the situation will not satisfy everyone.
Perhaps, the national government should seriously consider what other countries have done and transfer the country’s capital somewhere else and start from scratch to avoid all the pitfalls of the urbanization process.
