FIRST TIME TRAVEL IMPRESSIONS

View from Victoria Peak

Hongkong Harbor on a Sunday Night.

The opportunity to travel to relax the mind, nerves, and body strained by government service also offers the prospect to compare, wish, and contemplate what should be (or shouldn’t be).

 

For transportation planners like me (National Center for Transportation Studies - U.P. Diliman, 1992) it cannot be avoided not to take note of how much can be learned, given another country's advanced technology and funding sources; or how culture, ethnical values or governance impacts on transportation systems.

 

Hongkong has a population of 7.072 million as of 2011 (populationmattters.org) in a 1,104 sq. kilometers land area, or a population density of 6,782.92 per sq. km in 2010 (tradingeconomics.com) but its transportation system is impressive that practically there are no vehicular traffic snags and no traffic policemen in sight.

At 8:00 o’clock in the morning, major streets are still "practically deserted" as people are moved mostly below ground, with trains operating from 6:00 o’clock A.M. exactly. The ground level seems to be reserved to the red and black taxis, double-decker buses, and high-end cars from Ferraris to Volvos, Benzes to BMWs, and an occasional Rolls Royce. One would almost salivate from the fine cars you meet while going up Victoria Peak on a Sunday.

With only nine (9) train lines, which include the Express Train servicing the 35.3 kilometers stretch from Lantau Island to Hongkong, and the Disneyland Resort line, the MTR seems to be adequate to move people around Hongkong to the New Territories and through major cities across mainland China.

Other than the efficiency, the cleanliness of the coaches and the convenience that the system is impressive that even executives in their spotless business suits take the railway system, and there is never a want for places to shop or snack in the train stations and water jet ferry terminals.

 

Add to these the high-speed escalators, elevators, and people practically running to work.

I call it maximized space, technology, and resource utilization.

In sharp contrast, Metro Manila and some highly urbanized Philippine cities are faced with traffic problems.  All sorts of solutions are being offered, short of expanding/ extending existing road networks, modifying the unified vehicular volume reduction program (number coding) to include all Metro Manila roads, and twice a week carless day.

Fine, but drivers’ discipline seems to have not been taken into account, so much emphasis perhaps on “human rights” or lack of political will?

Budgetary constraints may negate an alternative mass transport system, and that is the major obstacle, compounded by the issues of informal settlers who may refuse to vacate identified rights of way.

 

In my thesis defense, I cannot forget what the Chair had asked, “but people have places to go, what are your alternatives?” 

Urban centers may be established farther away with the inter-connecting rapid mass transport systems, or trip generators relocated. De la Salle University in Greenhills contributes significantly to the congestion of Ortigas Avenue, only that DLSU had been there long before Vera Mall, Music Museum, etc.

 

The countryside and provincial areas should be better developed for greater opportunities. Many are still disillusioned by the "glitter" of Metro Manila, hence the bloated population.

I am not sold on the idea of central land-based transport terminals to be built in the north and south (FTI Area) entry points of Metro Manila, where “provincial buses” will be required to unload their passengers instead of at Araneta Center or Cubao areas. Firstly, it will inconvenience passengers from Southern Tagalog and Bicol, while other buses plying the CAMANAVA – Metro Manila Route, also classified as “provincial buses”, will be left unchecked to congest EDSA. Notice how they diagonally occupy two lanes of EDSA to load or wait for passengers.

Bicol buses do not contribute to the congestion of C-4 (EDSA) or C-5 as they do not unload nor load passengers there and their trips are on the early morning and early evening.

Worse, the same or more public transport would be needed to ferry unloaded passengers at the Central Bus Stations to their specific destinations, unless a rapid transit system is available. What are the plans for the transport modal split?

The concept of moral and social responsibility in business should be pursued as what SM Megamall, Trinoma, and SM North have done. The malls have expanded their parking facilities and provided off-street loading and unloading zones or transport pick-up/ drop-off facilities. This is to address their social responsibility to minimize the negative effects to the traffic of their businesses as trip generators.

With the completion of the Bicol International Airport, can it be assured that plane passengers will not be late for their flights nor be victimized by unscrupulous drivers? Daraga CBD is a traffic bottleneck.

The HK International Airport (Kai Tak Airport) in Kowloon was transferred 35.3 kilometers away to Lantau Island in 1998 but the MTR Express Train can ferry plane passengers in comfort to Hongkong Central in about 25 minutes.

 

How people would wish it could be the same here.