How Much of My Life Will EDSA Take?

(SPOT.ph) We all have the same number of hours in a day as Beyoncé—so why can't we move upwards in life as much as she has? Well, how many hours has the queen spent on EDSA? Zero. Compared to a major part of Mega Manila's population, Beyoncé does not have to spend a good chunk of her day crawling through any major thoroughfare in the Metro. We can only be so lucky. Anytime anything's to be done outside of our homes, like say, getting to work, EDSA demands from us a sacrifice of several hours of our lives, like some sort of demon lord only getting hungrier for more and more and more. (With our excuses to the late Epifanio de los Santos.)

Fun fact: EDSA was once Highway 54. Yes, a highway. Now, it's a parking lot. It's still the main road that connects Metro Manila's cities to one another. We’ve been given our Libis and our Skyway this and that but EDSA has remained vital as ever. As the years pass, it only gets tougher to use—and all of the capital region's pathways appear only to be following suit. So what happens when the people, a city's bloodline, struggle to move?

Also read: 10 Places on EDSA That Need "Build, Build, Build" for Pedestrians

EDSA and the curse of moving around in Metro Manila

Christmas is the most capitalistic time of the year. So it's no surprise that congestion along EDSA and on Metro Manila roads in general are at its worst, with the MMDA even having to regulate mall hours because of it. Mid-December saw around 409,000 vehicles traversing the thoroughfare daily, with the agency expecting a 20% increase as Christmas neared. We felt it, likely sat through it, silent-screaming Christmas carols as some ironic, pitiful coping mechanism. To compare, the MMDA said in 2019 that EDSA's daily carrying capacity is at just 200,000. With those numbers, it's only logical to conclude that each of us will end up crawling for hours to make it to our destination. Emotionally, mentally, heck, spiritually? There's no sense at all.

It's not just EDSA. Anytime a new road is touted as the answer to declogging the Metro’s main artery, we expect it to be next in line for the title of Miss Congested. Think the Christmas exodus jams on NLEX, SLEX—or anytime there's a concert at the Philippine Arena, or the hell that the south road was back when the Skyway was being built. Speaking of the Skyway, I am now able to reach NAIA from Quezon Avenue in 20 minutes thanks to the highly anticipated Stage 3, so long as I spend 40 minutes getting to the on-ramp from my house less than 10 kilometers away. Is that progress? I'm no infrastructure expert but it won't be wrong to say that's a hard no.

The roads mentioned have all been tollways. Getting to NAIA costs me around P350 on the Skyway, just a little less than the P573 minimum daily wage—which also begs the question: who are these roads for? For those who can't afford toll on the regular, much less a private car, there is public transportation. And as we are talking Metro Manila context, that isn't saying much either, if anything at all.

Whether jeep, train, bus, FX, UV Express or whatever, anyone who's taken any form of public transport in Metro Manila knows that doing so is equivalent to a daily shedding of one’s dignity. Okay, not entirely, but you best be okay with feeling less human, somehow—now imagine how it feels for the majority of the population that takes that beating regularly.

I know I cannot speak for this large chunk of our population but I can at least commiserate. I've chatted with ride-hailing service drivers who tell me that after dropping off their vehicle at their boss’ garage, they still have to make that two-hour journey home—a home somewhere in Navotas. I’ve spoken to office workers from Cavite who can't afford to rent a room in Manila and so just endure hours of commute. I’ve talked to stay-out cleaners who have to do four transfers from deep in Rizal just to make it in time to their amo’s house, where they also take care of their amo’s children.

There have been efforts. Not to discredit all the train-line extensions currently underway—which hopefully we'll see within our lifetime—and more temporary aids like the EDSA Carousel and the MRT-3 improvements. Then there are all the planned big-ticket highways and bridges, from the controversial PAREX to the eyebrow-raising Bataan-Cavite Interlink—there’s no doubt they will speed up travel for a while but there are also two points to be raised: Who will these new passageways benefit? What will our children know of the Pasig River and Manila Bay after these mammoth structures are installed?

EDSA: Ganito na lang ba?

It's hard to believe, but there were big, unified plans for Metro Manila's roads once upon a time. You've likely heard of American urban designer Daniel Burnham's plans for the capital before WWII, or the overarching network of Circumferential and Radial roads, or better yet, how we once had Asia's most extensive railway system. A long-term, sustainable development that could grow with the city has been lost along the way. It’s time to get back on track.

Also read: The Philippines Once Had an Extensive Railway System; Why Wasn’t it Rebuilt?

In some ways, EDSA is a great equalizer. The CEO sitting pretty in a plush Chrysler is stuck in the same traffic as a delivery guy in a beat-up Tamaraw. It’s a sad and twisted sort of way to look at it. But also not a bad thing—except we need to fix the equation. The goal should be that both CEO and delivery guy make it home and have enough time to be with family, cook dinner, maybe even work on a hobby. Live life, plain and simple.

We Filipinos are very good at laughing things off, turning pain points into memes, using a very real problem to make a Beyoncé reference. But with all the hours you and I have unwillingly given EDSA, staring at a sea of red lights, we can all of us agree this just isn't funny anymore.