PAREX: A boom or bust?
On September 23, 2021, big news came out about the proposed construction of an elevated expressway that will run along the Pasig River that connects Plaza Azul to Road 10 (R-10). Called the Pasig River Expressway or PAREX, it is proposed to alleviate traffic across C-5, EDSA, and R-10 by creating a direct artery from east to west of the City of Manila and vice versa.
This 95-billion peso project, created through a joint venture of the Philippine National Construction Corporation (PNCC) and San Miguel Holdings Corporation (SMHC), is slated to be part of the Build-Build-Build program under the management of the Department of Works and Highways. It is a response to the drastically worsening traffic congestion in Metro Manila leading to an estimated economic loss of 3.5 billion pesos daily according to Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
But is it truly going to be a gamechanger or a force multiplier of the traffic woes in the Philippines’ metro cities? Let us weigh in on the fundamentals to understand the situation better with insights from Jedd Ugay, the Chief Mobility Officer of AltMobility PH.
Old ideas die hard
What is a prevailing notion when it comes to transportation in the Philippine context?
That cars are the standard for comfort and convenience in traveling from point A to point B.
This is not a cause for wonder, since urban development philosophies that were being followed at the time when Metro Manila was still an underdeveloped stretch of grasslands until today came from a widely accepted concept peddled by Western planners. Jedd comments:
Parang ‘yung ideology nga noon, let’s go to the future, ang future na nakita nga nila is automobile. Parang image siya of progress. But after 1960s and 1970s, maraming cities — yung mga nangunguna siyempre since sila yung may resources to do that jumpstart — nakita nila, na-experience nila, na parang nagkaroon ng disappointing results yung mga projects.
Take for example Brussels, the capital city of Belgium. During the mid-1960s, big open spaces were occupied for car parking with some two lanes for opposing traffic, eventually leaving very tight spaces for people to walk. Other countries such as The Netherlands and Austria also adopted the same ideology but then later altered their urban plan due to the unsustainability of increasing vehicle use that clogged roads and therefore restricted movement.
So now, actually many cities are veering away from elevated expressways and car-centric infrastructure kasi nga nakita na in many case studies across the world na disappointing yung results. Parang it doesn’t really solve congestion and it increases pollution.
Moving goods
The movement of goods and supplies to feed the needs of the people is very important, and this is where better roads and channels come into play. This is especially at a time when on-demand services are a hit to Filipinos, due to high mobile usage and restrictive health and safety protocols that were imposed during the first phase of the pandemic.
According to an e-commerce roadmap from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in the Philippines, e-commerce contributed 3.4%, or PHP599 billion, to the country’s GDP in 2020.
If goods movement, they are okay. But we always have to check if the road project is really to prioritize goods movement. Kasi so far I don’t see any road project which prioritizes goods movement. Mayroon pa silang truck ban, mayroon pa silang mga window hours lang, maraming restrictions. And also considering nga ‘yung carbon footprint impact which is gaining more and more concerns in the past few years.
With the emergence of on-demand purchases of items ranging in sizes, vehicles are hailed on-demand to pick up the goods from warehouses or hubs where products are kept. This also poses a challenge as more courier vehicles use the road, therefore seeing the need for fewer private vehicles for people movement as an essential way to facilitate better traffic flow. Even more so, one way to optimize travel is using smaller storage spaces for closer proximity of goods in a given area, thereby reducing and shortening trips by delivering goods at once in a shorter period of time.
‘Yung mga smaller kind of storage important na rin. Although sa larger warehouses din, they also help but of course you also want to optimize. Parang as much as possible sa efficiency, you want a smaller warehouse. Meaning, mas efficient ka na naimo-move mo kaagad yung good to the customer.
Impacts of a car-centric infrastructure
Taking into account a type of infrastructure that prioritizes vehicle movement, there are pros and cons. On the upside, it favors the supply chain as both freight and third-party logistics are given diverse networks of pathways to move, therefore boosting economic activity while meeting the increasing demand with sufficient supply. On-time shipment and competitive prices have been found to have a positive relationship together, as an increase of 1% on both sees Vietnam’s GDP per capita increase by 1.126% and 2.202%, based on a 2021 study.
The downside always leads to the argument between letting people in cars versus people in mass and active transportation move better. Which one should be prioritized? Will the abundance of one help carry the other? A research finding shows that on average, a private vehicle is occupied by 1.7 people on a given day in Europe. This means that a vehicle that is supposed to carry 5 to 7 passengers including the driver only sees 24–34% efficiency in people mobility. To think that Europe already has a generally better mobility system than other countries such as ours.
One of the emerging ideas that have been proven time and time again is the law of induced demand: the more channels are provided to move vehicles, the more congested a channel becomes. That said, adding more roads for cars leads to more car use — a traffic build-up in the making. With more cars on the road and more people relying on cars for travel, issues such as safety, lack of social interaction, and overall urban health are exacerbated. Jedd comments:
On Safety
Sa health, definitely pollution. Sa safety, increasing chances of road crashes. ’Yung sa safety, ang titignan mo talaga diyan, ang tinatawag nila na homogenous speeds. Dapat ‘yung lahat nung nandoon sa road na ‘yun or street na ‘yun, same kayo ng speed. Kapag may pagkakaiba ng speed, doon nagkakaroon ng higher chances of road crashes. So since yung walking and biking slow sila, dapat lahat slow. Or if ‘yung mga high speed outside of metro siguro.
On Social Interaction
In terms of social health naman, because your car-centric infrastructure wants you na parang nasa loob ka ng sasakyan, it reduces your chances to have social interaction unlike if you were doing walking or public transport or a biking travel or trip. So meaning, the more that we do car infrastructure such as expressways, it would actually reduce your social interaction and social health. Sa daan doon mo nakikita yung mga interactions mo with your neighbor or whoever na nasa office, sa market there are public performances normally, and you don’t appreciate those if you are in a car.
You have to look at projects we can provide, not just mobility, but also enhance social interaction and be delivered with a fraction of the climate impact footprint.
On Urban Health
Kapag tinignan ko ang expressway, parang kapag mobility, oo siguro pwede. Pero ‘yung impacts niya in other aspects like pollution, health, environment, negative ‘yung impact niya. So kapag nagtitingin ka ng transport project, dapat nakaka-improve siya ng transport outcome but doesn’t impact negatively or significantly impact other important urban issues. But highways and car-centric infrastructure, they can help in moving people and goods, but they have significant impact on other sectors like environment and health.
Maximizing value in all aspects
How is value being measured or scaled when transport and mobility are at the forefront? For one, comfort, convenience, and accessibility to transport modes and mobility options must be present.
It seems too simple to describe. When broken down, however, it becomes a combination of parts and parcels that make a trip enjoyable, from walking out of a house or any building, to taking a transport vehicle and then walking for the last mile until the destination. What is being discovered today is that transport and mobility is not a mere transactional thing. It helps people win with walkable pathways, small businesses to thrive, and people activity to flourish, according to a 2014 study.
Ang transport hindi lang siya movement. It is also placemaking. You have to make the route enjoyable. Kapag masyadong car-centric, it just reduces the trip to the mobility aspect but actually, you want to maximize the social value of the trip. Doon mo mama-maximize kung mas pedestrian and placemaking-oriented siya. Placemaking, meaning you also wanted the place to look good and the journey to be safe and also enjoyable. For example, doon nabubuhay ‘yung mga mom-and-pop stores, mga potential small establishments, small and medium enterprises on the road. Dahil mataas yung foot traffic doon, nagkakaroon ng opportunity.
The more kasi that it is enjoyable, the more the people will patronize walking and public transport kasi the more that they enjoy the place if they use those modes.
Other than aesthetics, placemaking also means strategically planning the location of establishments. For example, a walkway leading to a bus stop is well-shaded with trees with various activities available on the way to further optimize the travel, and by enabling interaction with people, things, and the environment, immediate purchase of goods, dining, and all other kinds of humanized experiences.
Smaller but more local context-based projects
The Build-Build-Build program largely focuses on big-ticket projects such as railway extensions, the Metro Manila Subway, and North-South Commuter Rail by the Department of Transportation, Skyway Stage 3, Metro Cebu Expressway, and Bonifacio Global City to Ortigas Road Link Project by DPWH, and New Clark City by BCDA.
Zooming in on transportation alone, while beneficial, the big-ticket projects are oftentimes focused on building select instead of diverse networks that enable access to all places for all people within an urban environment such as Metro Manila.
If you look at outcomes, a subway would just provide for a particular corridor. But if you converted that budget let’s say to 10 to 20 Bus Rapid Transit projects, then you could have benefitted more people on more corridors. So kumbaga, mas malaki yung impact sana, I think, in terms of network coverage — spatial coverage — kung we deliver projects na more value for money so that we can implement in more corridors.
To address more local-specific challenges in mobility also constitutes empowering local governance. This is to enact programs that involve smaller communities dealing with micro-challenges that collectively add up altogether to those overbearing issues on a macro scale. The lack of mobility options for residents in a barangay, for example, could be a factor in reliance on the next neighborhood’s mobility options that have better systems in place. In this situation, the demand overflows while supply becomes limited.
For a lot of other towns and municipalities that would have smaller budget, ang gagawin mo diyan meron kang large budget na pooled. Parang ito na ‘yung budget, all cities, all towns and municipalities can access this. That is a way. Pero ‘yun nga, it will have a bit more administrative effort, I think na nakakapagod siguro isipin. But that is what I saw other countries do successfully.
Shifting the focus from car to pedestrian
All the issues to an urban design that’s focused on car throughput have been turning out to be more of a lopsided trend as more resources are pooled into making cars go faster than enabling a majority of the urban population to move better. Although there are big investments in rail transport as promising long-term solutions to the sufficiency of high occupancy vehicles, these developments are set to be realizable in several years rather than see incremental changes in a few months with smaller projects that tackle more immediate needs.
In general, I think kulang nga tayo ng investment pa sa active transport — so walking and cycling, and also road-based public transport. So if i-assess mo yung budget ng DOTr and DPWH, less than 1% niyan or halos wala — almost close to 0% — goes to pedestrians. Tapos kapag kinompare mo pa yung mga bikes, less than 1% pa rin.
Road-based public transport, halos walang investment. Most of our public transport investments are on rail. Eh matagal ma-implement yung rail projects plus konti lang ‘yung corridors na nalalagyan ng railway projects so kumbaga kapag sinabi mong sa Build-Build-Build we are going to invest this much pero hindi pa maramdaman nung tao.
If not highways, then where should we better focus on?
For me, top priority is pedestrian improvements, pedestrian infrastructure. Kapag nakita mo sa ibang bansa, lahat nung magagandang cities ang lawak ng sidewalk nila at ang ganda. Ang sarap maglakad. Hindi mo sasabihing “wala na kasi tayong space” but if you look at Manhattan, if you look at Seoul, sobrang lawak nung sidewalk nila, spanning maybe more than three car lanes even. In London also, sobrang lawak nung pedestrian space. ‘Yun ‘yung wala tayo.
And I think sasabihin nila it’s either chicken or egg — is it the pedestrian improvement bringing this much improvement in land values or is it because the land values are high kaya nawa-widen nila yung pedestrian space? But let’s look at BGC, wider sidewalk than usual, it has very high land values. Makati din medyo better within the CBD in terms of pedestrian infrastructure. What I’m mentioning is, all the areas with a high value — CBD areas — have wider pedestrian sidewalks. It’s either chicken or egg, pero what I see is that the more that you widen your sidewalks on these kinds of areas, the higher your land values become.
So, pedestrian improvement is first especially now Covid impacted our lifestyle. Parang less priority or parang less na ‘yung preference on aircon, closed spaces because there’s no air ventilation. There’s more preference on open spaces which are better ventilated so open spaces like that are pedestrian spaces as well. Kasi parks and open spaces also serve as pedestrian access. So when you discuss pedestrian improvement, they include open spaces. I think that should be the highest priority if specifically, you want to improve social capital.
Social capital ang foundation niyan, social interactions. So you can get the most social interactions through pedestrian movement, not from your car. Maybe in a bike kasi you are a bit slower but because you stop. But pedestrian, you gain social capital just from walking, and has higher social capital than other modes kasi you access public transport by walking. So you walk to the bus, you have interaction within the public transport. You don’t speak to some of them. Kind of see people, it’s a social interaction. You help people siguro. Also in the market, you access it normally if you do pedestrian movement in other stalls. Public performances happen on wide-enough pedestrian walkways.
Second is public transport. Then next is bike lanes.
Prioritizing public interest is the key
With people’s interests in mind, it is important to pay attention to what benefits more people to see more radical changes that lead to outcomes beyond the social sphere.
If you look at long-term, social capital is actually very important to long-term economic capital. Kasi for example if you construct an expressway, you get shorter gains because you have short-term jobs during the construction, which is good naman. But if you want long-term improvement, long-term economic impacts, what you would want are stalls from small to medium enterprises to happen, you want more businesses na mga mom and pop stores — yung mga households can do, and those are possible if you are prioritizing more of pedestrian and public space, or open space.
Essentially because they are avenues for social interaction and therefore social capital. So in essence, active and public transport projects support more social interaction. And since they are in open spaces in public setting, they are actually in safer setting na mas open and well-ventilated spaces. So the more that you are providing social interaction, it can lead to social capital not just in social health kasi health din yung pakikipag-usap, di ba parang nafu-fulfill din yung ganoong needs mo, but also it provides an opportunity for small business owners to sell.
‘Yung mga large car infrastructure, ang magbe-benefit nun actually ay yung company that will develop it. After noon, wala na masyado. I mean, kapag mga public spaces, ‘yung social capital makukuha mo siya sa sinasabi kong movement and places approach — you look at not just movement but also placemaking. You can also look at transit-oriented development, those kinds of terminologies. ‘Yung area, papagandahin mo siya so that gusto ng people na mag-stay doon and to utilize the public transport available on that area. Nag-aattract siya ng tao. So kapag nag-aattract ng tao, siyempre ‘yung foot traffic nag-aattract din ng businesses.
So that’s how you provide inclusive development. Kasi ‘yung mga tao doon, naggo-grow din. For example ‘yung mga street vendors, siguro you can include them in that design and have a stall there na parang hawker. Nae-elevate mo pa yung economic status by providing those avenues.
