by Nicasio Angelo Agustin
Cities and other urban places continue to grow and develop. Their paces of growth however vary significantly among them and over time according to their innate and deliberate capacities to accommodate influx of social and economic activities.
Capacities of cities are not fixed over time. This means that a city which is adjudged as exemplary today may not be the same tomorrow and the years to come unless it carefully upgrades its capacities every so often to keep up with the challenges of the time. The measure of capacity should then be seen as dynamic and progressive, though some cities enjoy some good reputation for an outstanding performance in the past that they are no longer thoroughly scrutinized for their actual current level of capacities. This is rather scary as its breeds a lulling effect which could harmfully turn to mediocrity.
This variability of capacity over time explains why some cities and urban places develop faster on some periods of time and slow at some points. This also accounts for why some places remain the same over a given period while some just simply deteriorate.
The economic and social readiness of areas for further growth can be measured by many indicators, but physical readiness – from a layman’s point – can best be measured in terms of traffic congestion, let alone the sophisticated physical progress as manifested by massive building constructions and infrastructure facility installations.
Traffic congestion is not only a symptom of poor urban planning and design. It is an indicator of the ineffectiveness and unresponsiveness of local machineries in managing not only the growth on the movement and travel needs of people and activities from one spatial point to another, but more importantly the location and growth of traffic origins and destinations which are simply called the traffic generators.
While traffic management and enforcement are instituted to respond to these traffic concerns, they are focused on the more undemanding task of regulating the flow of traffic through the designation of traffic enforcers and the installation of traffic facilities. In more developed countries, traffic management strategies and policies go down to the very root causes of traffic congestion. For us in the Philippines, the most common notions about traffic congestion are the deteriorating physical upkeep of road network and signages, negative behavior and lack of discipline among drivers and motorists, and the non-enforcement of traffic rules.
In a wholistic approach, there is more to mere responding to the common notions. We have to go directly to the very nature of the problem: there are traffic congestions primarily because there are more commuters and motorists passing through a particular line than what these static road facilities could provide and accommodate. Thus, the simple solution is either to reduce the traffic volume in congestion points or increase the service capacity of road facilities, or both.
The reduction of traffic volume is a function of the location of economic and social activities as well as of the availability of alternative traffic routes from trip origins to destinations. The service capacities of road facilities, on the other hand, are determined by how we maximize the use of our road assets. In downtown Davao City, for example, half the street capacity count is devoted to parking during the day, meaning, the usual 4-lane streets are reduced to 2 lanes; hence, the effective lanes or service capacities are greatly reduced by half. In this particular case, the problem then is not the large traffic volume but it is as simple as the lack of vehicle parking spaces. Unfortunately, in most cities of the country, there are no properly designated public and paid parking spaces unlike in Tokyo where every block is serviced by a generous space for parking.
The 2 ultimate solutions to traffic congestion (i.e., reduction of traffic volume in congestion points and maximization of the service capacities of road assets) could not be done by volunteer- or even paid traffic enforcers. They are best addressed by good local planners who possess a good grasp of the very dynamic and interrelated nature between transport and land use planning.
It is high time now that our local urban leaders recognize the technical expertise of our local planners in this particular concern. Traffic congestion cannot be solved by simply dealing with its operational causes. Let’s give the steering wheel to our expert local planners to drive us to that long lasting, smooth driving solution to traffic congestion.
Feel free to send your comments to nic_agustin@yahoo.com.
