From Flood to Flight

We were driving on the way home after a few hours of rainfall flooded the streets of the metro once again. Fortunately, we weren't hit by the floods. Unfortunately, since most of the metro is interconnected, a flood in Buendia can trigger a gridlock in EDSA-Roxas.

As we were driving, I noticed that commuters have already walked past the normal waiting area for jeeps and buses and have met the public utility vehicles in advance. Usually, we would submit this as another case for the lack of discipline among Filipinos. But if you look at it closely, especially if you've been a commuter during the rainy season, a more complex mind game is at work.

During the rains, more vehicles are slowed down by floods, therefore, vehicles available for rides arrive later and less frequently.

The time you get off work does not change, so there is the same amount of people waiting for the bus/jeep.

There is no contingency plan to beef up more transport, so you would expect a lesser supply of buses/jeeps given a particular time frame.

The traffic enforcers are trying to unsnarl the traffic, but there is a limit to how much they can free up the chokepoints, namely the vehicle capability and the road conditions.

Since the traffic enforcers are busy unraveling traffic to increase the supply, but not fast enough, a few impatient commuters move forward to get home earlier. Since they are not penalized, the rest follow. Thus, another gridlock is born.

If there would be more traffic enforcers to try to maintain order to avoid jumping the lines, that would only solve part of the problem. Because traffic enforcers cannot maintain the road conditions that aggravated the flooding in the first place.

The people know that something's fishy going on in road repair, as seen by the numerous asphalt outlays that need to be replaced year in and year out. They know that contractors and crooks in congress, city hall, and other government offices take their share, but aren't convicted. The people don’t usually make the direct connection that the potholed, corrupted-laden roads are the cause of the floods during a drizzle, but it's at the back of their heads. And this may be one reason why some of us are unafraid to bend a few rules, since our dear leaders break it so brazenly can get away with it.

And then they foist on you someone who will be the metro disciplinarian but unwilling to go after the big fish. He can clean up the sidewalks of the informal vendors, fine. But I still see gas-guzzling convoys chugging along the metro and he's not stopping them. Sadly, I think our reigning elite would go for volume sales (funding the national coffers with compensation income tax or catching small fry) rather than high-margin sales (small percentage of corporate income tax funding our development or catching big fish). Since the middle and lower class are being squeezed, they get out by voting with their feet.

Erg, a social rant based on today's traffic. How dreadful.