THE ROADS TO THE GATES OF HELL

As if another rant about MetroManila traffic will really matter.  Everybody curses what has become of the metropolis the moment he steps out of the house.

Whereas before this kind of Carmageddon only exists during the peak of the shopping season of Christmas, now the level of "devolution" has literally peaked ... or perhaps still peaking.  Regardless of day, time or location, you will get stuck in traffic in Manila. And being stuck in traffic does not preclude sitting on your derriere in the confines of your car for fifteen to thirty minutes. Nowadays we average about an hour and a half of watching the rear end of the car in front of you or gazing at the semi-naked bodies in underwear billboards at the Guadalupe Bridge.

Once upon a time in the late '80s until the early '90s, it took about an hour from Alabang to reach Fairview. That is about 40 kilometers on a regular day with a little bottleneck taking place at the end of Commonwealth Avenue.  But now it is faster to take a flight from Manila to Haneda Airport in Tokyo than to travel from the south to that far north of the city.

The worst scenario was nearly fours of travel from Trinoma to Alabang literally crawling and squirming through main thoroughfares and side streets giving WAZE a nervous breakdown. Somehow there should be no surprise if all of a sudden that staccato voice recording in WAZE would tell you, "Make a U-turn now and just go home."

Those of us with private vehicles are still much luckier than the greater number of the citizenry who depend on mass transport systems to commute from home to work.  Some have confessed that they waste a grand total of four hours each day going to work and coming home.  This includes the hideous queues that lead to jeepney pick up points and the much dreaded trains --- if and when they are operational.

Referring again to the Land of the Rising Sun, the Japan Railway System (JRS) apologized to their riders because the train arrived a few minutes too early.  Uhm, out here in our city wilderness no apologies are ever sent to commuters who are made to vacate the coaches, walk on the railway tracks to proceed to the nearest station because the train conked out.  Of course there are all these accounts of train doors not closing and God knows what further proof of deterioration is taking place requiring the most urgent and immediate solution.

Anyone among us privileged to see the mass transport systems and the city railways of Japan, Hong Kong and even Thailand will realize that we have been so shortchanged not only with the services but the quality of life we deserve. And why?  

It is easy to blame the here and now but ... wait. Let us remember that we got into deep this very, very deep and seemingly inescapable shit hole not in a matter of months but through a collection of years of irresponsible management, lack of foresight or what about plain textbook effing corruption.  Those thrown into the firing squad because of the need to address all these herculean problems just happened to be at the end of the line.

Why were there not enough infrastructural developments done in the past realizing the growing number of private vehicles being sold? Why was there no effort to not only improve but to give proper maintenance to our railway systems that service the greater number of urban dwellers?  Why was there no visible planning to decongest the city and bring business to the nearby suburbs so as to develop more hubs for commerce?  Why is there no effort to encourage home offices considering the accessibility and utility of the internet in our country?  

Oh, we just keep asking all these questions over and over again making it all the more frustrating that no visible solutions are being made to change the situation. What we get are inane panaceas and consuelo de bobo of making do rather than changing the situation.

Somebody said, "Accept traffic as now a part of your daily life."  It could not be as easy as that. You do not accept daily torture as a form of penance to enter the Kingdom of God.

In the meantime, let us admit that Dan Brown was right when he said that we are living in the Gates of Hell.