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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Car-less Days By Antonio C. Abaya Written Feb. 01, 2005 For the Philippines Free Press, February 12, 2005 From Feb. 02 to 08, the northern Italian town of Vicenza is imposing a ban on private cars, in a major bid to fight pollution. During this period, the 115,000 residents of Vicenza are required to use public transport. Exempted from this ban are police and emergency vehicles, taxis, disabled motorists, cars going to funerals or weddings (a huge loophole), and vehicles running on liquid gas, electric power or hybrids thereof. The AFP news story did not say if this ban will be a monthly feature of life in Vicenza. It must be; a yearly ban would be utterly meaningless. Several other Italian cities, including Rome and Milan, have imposed similar temporary restrictions on cars. One-day restrictions have been imposed in Milan and 100 other northern Italian cities and towns. Rome and Milan have also been testing a measure banning cars with even- or odd-numbered license plates on alternate Thursdays. Similar schemes are already in place in Venice, Turin and Verona. Florence, meanwhile, has decreed that on three days each week vehicles not fitted with catalytic converters in their exhaust systems are banned from its streets. It is only a matter of time that these municipal ordinances will be replaced with nationwide anti-pollution measures, and eventually Europe-wide restrictions on the use of private cars, as the continent grapples with air pollution, 70% of which is caused by motor vehicles burning fossil fuels. Europe, at least, is lucky. Most of their towns and cities are served by efficient, modern and comfortable electric trams. Car owners whose vehicles are banned on certain days can easily switch to electric trams for their commutes. Not so the US and, by extension, the Philippines. Major American cities used to have electric trams before the Second World War, and so did Manila (run by the Manila Electric Co., the forerunner of Meralco). But the love affair with the automobile, in the postwar boom era, compelled the Americans to uproot their tram tracks to make more room for the automobile. So did the copycat Filipinos, even if car density here was never near the density in the US. Now many American urban planners and traffic managers wish they had retained their electric trams, as Europe did, not only because of the problem of air pollution but also because of increasing traffic gridlocks even on the freeways, during the morning and evening rush hours. I have personal experiences of being stuck for hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic on Highways 101 and 280 in San Francisco-San Jose and the Santa Monica and other freeways in Greater Los Angeles. The thought that this will likely get worse before it gets better, even in the US, as more and more cars roll off the assembly lines into the streets, makes me appreciate even more the wisdom of Europe�s tram networks. And not just Continental Europe. In the mid 1990s, the City of Birmingham in the UK commissioned an in-depth study of the traffic problem. It concluded that, among other things, building more roads was not the answer: it just encourages more people to buy more cars, which clog up the new roads as fast as they are built. It recommended, instead, that the city build a wider rail-based network of LRT trunk lines and tram feeder lines, and encourage people to use it and just leave their cars at home. How? By reducing the number of parking spaces available and increasing parking fees. And by amending the city�s building code so that each new building will be allowed fewer parking slots in its basement than before. And not just Europe. The City of Melbourne in Australia is crisscrossed with 360 tram routes, which I was given a tour of in 1995. Any point you want to reach in Melbourne can be reached by one or more tram rides. Even though there are some 1.5 million cars in the city, about the same number as in Metro Manila, there are virtually no traffic jams and the air is so clean Melbourne has been voted the Most Livable City in the World several times. Car owners use the trams in their daily commutes to workplace, school or shops, and use their cars on weekends when they go to the countryside. There is a lesson here for MMDA Chair Bayani Fernando and President Arroyo. To reduce air pollution and traffic congestion in the metro, it is not enough to impose a car-less day on each car, as now exists. There must an alternative public transport system that is acceptable to car-owners: LRT trunk lines (which exist) and tram feeder lines (which do not). Only then will car owners be convinced to leave their cars at home. (See my article �Trams versus Traffic,� Oct. 01, 2003.) Reactions to [email protected] or fax 824-7642. Other articles in www.tapatt.org. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Car-less Days� Tony, Cars, are status symbols in our status conscious society. As in feudalistic society, cars determine the peasants (on foot) and the masters (on horses). A Filipino in a car - even though he has not been trained correctly as in the U.S. to learn to drive the vehicle - has his ego inflated a bit, depending on the car he drives. Of course Pinoys still revere the Benz, followed by other European cars like the Porsche, BMW, and then the Japanese cars followed by American cars. Each of these emblems represent a kind of personality type. They say the BMW is driven by MBA grads moving up. The Benz is represented by those who have arrived, making 6 figure salaries or have succeeded in the smuggling of drugs business. And there are assorted wannabees yearning esconced in a Benz. The car-less discipline is something that we Filipinos lived with...but only one day a week. That is why each Pinoy family has at least two cars in order to obviate this law. But...NO CARS for a whole day? That is another thing. We are going to divest the insecure members of our society - ranging from politicians to aspiring peasant - of their ego tripping vehicles (who often trip over their egoes anyway). Tony Joaquin, [email protected] Daily City, California, February 07, 2005 MY REPLY. You�ve been in the US too long. Try staying in Europe for a while, for a change in perspective. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya: Greetings. I have been a reader of your column for the past few weeks (I receive it through email on a e-group account) and I have reserved making comments until now. Though I sometimes disagree with your opinions, I have to admit that among the various Philippine op/ed columns I have read over the years, your column strikes me as being one that is well written and fairly level headed. (Except for the occassional "chrissakes") With regard to the latest column I read, "Car-less Days", I couldn't agree with you more. I always lamented the fact that when I was living in Manila, I did not have enough options with regard to public transportation. Though I had a car, I preferred using public transportation to get around. I would take the MRT to Buendia and either walk to my destination, if it was in Makati CBD, or take one of the ubiquitous FX's all the way to Taft and take the LRT to other points in Manila. Something needs to be done about the dearth of orderly public transportation. One thing that really sticks out to me is the fact that "public" bus transportation is run by a mishmash of operators. I realize that at one point in time, Metro Manila city buses were operated by one entity, the Metro Manila Bus Transportation Company, if I am not mistaken. Who could forget the "Love Bus". This was scrapped some time after Marcos was booted out of office, with the company and its assets being liquidated and being operated by various groups. I think it is time to return to this method. No sane public bus transportation system can be operated by more than one company (an exception of course being the two company system they use in Hong Kong). This is because under the current system, companies do not bother running on a schedule and just send out as many buses as they can to meet the demand. In industrialized countries, I have yet to see an inner-city bus transportation system being run by more than one or two companies. Moreover, these companies are, more often than not, partially government run. This is because most countries treat public transportation like a function of the state. I know that we are all fearful of corruption in the system and people making too much money by centralizing plenty of capital in one entity, but I really believe this needs to be done. Too bad we don't trust anyone to run it honestly. One company would be able to study the best schedule for commuters and would be able to schedule the number and frequency of buses available accordingly. Moreover, they should just put the drivers and conductors (if needed) on a salary so as to avoid the problems of rushing from bus stop to bus stop in a mad race to get the most passengers. They should also have designated bus stops for people to get on and off a bus in order to avoid sudden stops in the middle of the road. I know that these are all suggestions that others have thought of. These are also suggestions that have other issues connected to them that need further discussion. They may even be seen as naive. I can already hear some people making excuses to not try this idea such as "so we have to walk all the way to the next corner to get on or off the bus when I live ten feet away from where I get on and off now" or "what do we do with all the other bus drivers and buses employed by the companies that you have to shut down" or "the top people of this mega company are going to fleece the public." The bottom line is: I really do not care what their complaints are. I understand that these concerns are important, but really, they have to take a backseat to more important things. Difficult problems require difficult solutions, and someone will always get the short end of the stick when making these decisions. But we, as a people, have to bite the bullet and just take it. I am afraid, however, that we lack the political will necessary to make these sweeping changes. I was once an idealist who was born American, grew up in the Philippines (grade school), educated in the US (high school and college), and returned to the Philippines to make a difference (law school). I thought that I could enter politics and make my opinions known, and rally people to my view. I naively thought that ideas still meant more than money. Sadly, I was mistaken. To illustrate the depth of my passion for our country, I literally cried while reading Lee Kuan Yew's book "From Third World to First" because I saw that success was within our grasp, but failed to grab it. I have almost totally given up hope in running for political office. I know that I have digressed from the original reason why I wrote to you, forgive me. I cannot help it. I could write reams and reams about my other ideas to change the Philippines, but it would just make my heart ache. Anyway, I just wanted to say I agree with you on this topic, and keep up the good work. Very truly yours, Frederick F. Calope, [email protected] Margaret Wong & Associates, Co., LPA 3150 Chester Avenue Cleveland, OH 44114 Tel: (216) 566-9908 Fax: (216) 566-1125 February 08, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww And the rides and the streets must be SAFE. Lydia B. Echauz, [email protected] President, Far Eastern University February 08, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, As Bob Dylan would say: " You don't need a weatherman to tell you were the wind blows," how do you think this would impact on Europe's major carmakers: Daimler- Benz, BMW, Fiat, Porsche, Rolls Royce, Agnelli, etc. or to stretch it farther, Detroit's big 3, and farther East, Toyota et al. Wouldn't they fight tooth and nails to protect their interests. Could you give us a more likely scenario ? Thanks. Auggie Surtida, [email protected] Iloilo, February 08, 2005 MY REPLY. Daimler Chrysler, Toyota, etc are all working with experimental models running on fuel cells. That will at least address the problem of pollution. Road congestion will be something else. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (Forwarded by Auggie Surtida) Hi Auggie The Danes carry all these measures a bit further. Aside from reducing parking spaces in the centrum and increasing the parking meter fees (45 kroner per hour - roughly 8 dollars per hour during rush hour until 6pm), plus increasing the illegal parking fine to 500 kroner (ouch really and truly because sometimes a McDonalds visit can end up like eating in the finest restaurant if you were stupid enough to risk parking in a no parking zone), they have built an underground, extended the trains and bus lines to places where they did not run before and developed more walking streets in all big and small cities and towns. People are encouraged to walk which has a double purpose - lower air pollution and increase your heartbeat. Also they have bicycles that you can ride for free. It works like a supermarket trolley - you put in a ten kroner or 20 kroner to free it from the guard rail, ride it wherever you please, then when you are finished just put it where there are bicycle parks and you can get back your coin. Works really well - no more stealing bikes just to go home after midnight. The trains and buses stop at midnight but there are what we call night buses and trains which have scheduled stops at designated places. So if you are bummed out of your brains after a night of bacchanalian orgy - you will sober up by the time you reach the bus stop. They have made bicycle lanes even in highways (secondary lanes away from the highway traffic). More importantly, Danes walk all the time - they do not use their cars just to go to the corner store like we Filipinos. And it is a bicycle riding country next or even at par with Holland. We also have parking spaces where we can park for free but it has a time limit and one has to set the clock that is already stuck on your windshield when you buy a car here from a dealer - what we call in Danish skive. One must put the real time you commenced parking and from that the parking police will determine whether you have parked over your time limit. Usually 30 minutes in government buildings to 3 hours for a shopping mall. The parking police are very very conscientious in giving you a ticket. So if you went into the mall to shop because there was a sale and you forgot about the time, then sorry - what you purchased was no longer on sale. And anyone spewing out those really awful smelling toxic carbon monoxide from the car will mean a suspension of use until you get yourself that catalytic converter. Usually these are for old cars. However, old cars really do not run in this country. They are either put to pasture by the police out on random checks or the driver is told to put the converter. You can lose your car from one minute to the next if the police thinks your car is too old that it has the possibility of causing harm to the driver or to others. We Filipinos just have to be educated and bamboozled into good traffic practices. Not in our lifetime I am afraid Tina-Berenguer-Peralta Denmark, February 09, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (Forwarded by Auggie Surtida) Dear Ms. Berenguer, Transportation systems in the Scandinavian countries are truly remarkable, that also include in Amsterdam (old Holland or the new Netherlands). I've also been to Oman -- one of the Gulf States -- and have observed one of the three laws of the Sultanate. They too do not allow old cars to run, let alone unclean dirty cars. You simply don't see old dilapidated cars running around in this impeccably peaceful and beautiful State of the region. Lower air pollution and relieve the congestion of traffic should be one of the priorities of each and every country's annual programme -- not to mention DISCIPLINE. OLIVIA CAPINPIN-PLATON Personal Assistant to the Acting Executive Chairman United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) ALCOA Building 866 United Nations Plaza 48th Street, between 1st Avenue & FDR Drive New York, February 09, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Indeed Melbourne is a good model for the Philippines... and perhaps other cities where there is difficulty posed by traffic congestion. Melbourne's air is so clean. It would be really excellent if the Philippines could have tram lines again Linda Baisa, [email protected] February 10, 2005 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww brucedisplayofprowess.blogspot.com how i do love your newspaper column. keep it up. good man! Bruce, [email protected] February 10, 2005 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |