Finally, the city’s traffic management center has noticed the absurd, incongruous, and preposterous series of traffic lights along J.P. Laurel Avenue in Davao City. I bet that many motorists had been wondering how come the company that designed the traffic system was able to persuade local officialdom to put install traffic lights just anywhere in the city. These traffic lights though does give us a sense of order in the streets, but the reality in certain areas of the city is simply horrendous.
I cannot understand why Abratique and Associates Inc., the company which was given the go signal to design and install the system in the city has been silent on the issue.
The recent move of authorities to suspend the operation of those controversial lights and utilize instead sheer human logic to redirect the flow of traffic untangle huge traffic jams in the area clearly support my point. It is an insult to a company who claims to be a professional civil and traffic engineering firm of consultants specializing in the design, deployment and maintenance of advance traffic control technology and emerging transportation management system solutions.
The series of traffic lights, some only a few meters apart, along J.P. Laurel are just one example of how poorly the so-called modern traffic management system was conceived and implemented. It is not only in that portion of the city that we can see the anomaly. I’ve noticed that at significant intersections, traffic lights are obviously not set to function everyday and look like Christmas lights blinking red or yellow. They are not broken, but if you are a driver, you would be thankful that those traffic lights are not working. – or to say it bluntly, should not have been placed there after all.
I remember during a meeting of the traffic management board, of which I was once a member, a representative of the company was so insistent on postponing the rehabilitation of a drainage canal at one section of Piapi Boulevard because of its effect on the computerized timing of the traffic system. He argued that the company had yet to make a computer simulation of the effect of the digging to the whole computerized traffic system. Not only that, the simulation would be done in the US of A!
While most of the members found it somewhat sensible, to do a computer simulation of what would be the possible effect, a group near me was grumbling because the schedule was timed for the school vacation to prevent traffic disruptions since traffic would be lean and most importantly it was still the dry the season. The company representative further argued that they needed time to adjust the timing of all traffic lights based on the result of computer simulation, and that their reputation would be at stake should a chaotic traffic flow would result. He got his way and the project was delayed.
Is the traffic system we are having now a product of that much bragged about computer simulation? You can can only wonder if the company is serious in making the system work efficiently, or their key interest is how to use up the entire city’s budget for the system.
I cannot deny that we need traffic lights. But I disagree that we just leave it to a company to place these facilities wherever they feel they are needed, or that their computer simulation says so!
I am not an expert in traffic systems, but I believe that a taxpayer who bears the cost of this system should be given a satisfactory explanation for the burden they suffer. The people should be elucidated on why the system they are made to bear brings them suffering than relief.
The social cost it brings, such as downtime, stress, waste of gas, productivity and many more. That I am sure cannot be simulated in the computer.
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