This damned thing called traffic in Manila

Dan Brown was right. Last night's graphic scenes of EDSA, the country's main thoroughfare, all lit straight out of a scene in Dante's Inferno, reminds us all of the need to adjust to the needs of change. EDSA needs a major facelift. EDSA is the one true sample of how urgent government needs to change its ways because of two things: it reflects on Filipino inefficiency and two, it reminds people of how government responds to the effects of change.

How can we fully say that we are ready for the big economic bang when our infrastructures are either insufficient or none at all? That catastrophe last night just caused us probably a billion or billions of pesos of lost monies. Imagine how many meetings got cancelled, how many deals not signed and how many important things we failed to achieve last night, all because of this damned traffic.

While plans for the facelift of EDSA seems taking a lot of time, why don't we do the following:

1. MMDA should expedite the removal of buses off EDSA. Provincial buses should be asked not to use EDSA and relegate their terminals away from Cubao, and should instead be built at Caloocan or at the very foot of Balintawak.

2. DPWH should improve drainage systems of EDSA. Flash floods submerged that portion of Santolan last night, choking all traffic from North to South and South to North. Santolan drainage system should be improved.

3. Those Christmas lanes are of no use. Those "shortcuts" immediately disappear as floods submerge most of them. Again, the problem is how to effectively drain the water immediately.

4. Where are those anti-flood measures built through Japanese monies? Why are we not revving those anti-flood turbines? Should'nt we add some more pumping stations to help ease flash flooding? Reports say, MMDA personnel responsible for operating those pumping stations again failed to operate those damned pieces of equipment.

5. MMDA should deploy more personnel in the event of an emergency, like last night.

6. MMDA should install LED monitors throughout the Metropolis to advise motorists where to go when a portion of the polis is submerged in flood waters. LED monitors help in easing anxiety. A breakdown in communications always leads to more anxiety attacks on the part of the motoring public.

7. LTO should limit the number of vehicles on the streets. Ban old vehicles, those made twenty years ago. Yes, acquiring property is a right yet government can always regulate it.