Take it from the expert!
Did you know that an average Filipino commuter will
sit through traffic to a cumulative nine years of their working prime sitting
and waiting it out in traffic, this is according to esteemed urban planner
specialist Arch. Felino “Jun” Palafox.
"[I]f you have 40 years of economic life with
the five to six hours a day [of commuting,] you would have wasted 28,000 to
40,000 hours, that's at least nine to fifteen years taken from your life,"
Palafox said.
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| Sad state of the daily bumper to bumper traffic in Manila (photo credit to owner) |
A data from the World Health Organization (WHO)
which was published in 2018 said that the total life expectancy in the
Philippines for both women and men is 69.3 years.
In a study conducted by the Boston Consulting Group
in 2017 it showed that Manila’s traffic congestion cost motorists an average of
an hour lost in in traffic every day, putting it at third worst in Southeast Asia.
A similar study was conducted by the Japanese, Japan
International Cooperation Agency in 2018 said traffic
now costs the Philippines P3.5 billion in "lost opportunities" daily.
The amount is expected to triple in number by the year 2030.
When asked about
president Duterte’s push for infrastructure projects Palafox said that, "I
think all of these recommendations will alleviate the situation but it will not
solve the problem."
"Traffic management is not enough,"
Palafox asserted of the many proposed solutions relating to congestion.
"How do you manage lack of roads [and] lack of transport? We start with
urban planning and land use, because land use is the demand side of traffic."
Do
nothing or do little
Palafox explains that the problem regarding the
mass transportation crisis has been identified as early as 43 years ago, yet
past administrations choose to do nothing because of politics in urban
planning.
The work on a number of infrastructure projects
only officially began when Rodrigo Duterte became President, despite these
proposals have been known 10 years ago, explains Palafox.
Asked for the
cause of delays, Palafox said there was "too much politics [and] lack
of continuity and institution memory."
"For the past few years, it was 'do nothing or
do little,' [and] that's why we have catastrophic traffic right now," he
said.
"They ignore previous planning initiatives,
and so on. It's short-term and opportunistic, it's not long-term and visionary."
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Report from PhilStar
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