Trafficked idiocy
A BRILLIANT idea, I have
to concede, is the rotunda traffic schema propounded by the Pampanga Chamber of
Commerce and Industry Inc. (PamCham).
So breathtakingly
brilliant that the city government of San Fernando and the Department of Public
Works and Highways lost no time in enforcing it, on a three-day trial basis,
sans any prior public notice.
The trial results though scratched
all the sheen off PamCham’s brainchild.
Chaotic is an understated
description of the result of the first day of trial, March 29, a Saturday at
that, with government offices closed for the weekend and with most schools
already on summer vacation.
The traffic surge that
swamped the rotunda-on-trial under the Dolores flyover at the junction of the
Jose Abad Santos Avenue and MacArthur Highway only showed the impracticability,
if not the impossibility, of the schema there.
The scene was straight out
of those early silent movies – of the exasperated Keystone cops trying to restore
order on roads gridlocked with all sorts of vehicles going in all directions.
Ah, if only curses could burn,
PamCham, DPWH and the city LGU would have been all cremated by early Sunday.
City Traffic Management
Unit chief Pines Pineda tags the flaw in PamCham’s brilliant idea: “Because the
earlier three lanes have been cut to two, there is a traffic build-up starting
on the northern section of the city, particularly in the vicinity of St. Jude
Village.” So was he quoted by Sun-Star
Pampanga. Also, “many motorists were confused on which way to go, some
taking counterflows that it took four traffic enforcers to guide them.”
Anybody other than an
idiot and the kindred minds of PamCham, DPWH and the city LGU could have seen
the deficiency in establishing a roundabout, yeah a rotunda is called that too,
under the Dolores flyover. The space is just too scant, too cramped to allow
the continuous flow of vehicles to and from multiple directions. The directional
arrows in the tarpaulin placed at the rotunda site already shows this and bodes
the ensuing confusion.
Still, as Sun-Star Pampanga quoted Pineda: “It
might be too early to see the effects of this rotunda. Personally, it might not
be feasible. We would have to make adjustments and more social preparation. It
might not apply locally, compared to those abroad. It will take discipline on
the part of our motorists. But then again, we will have to observe and monitor
the situation in the coming trial days.”
Why do I have this sense
that Pineda knew the futility, if not the idiocy, of the rotunda but did not
want to prick some bloated egos on the stupidity of their idea.
But the motorists’ uproar
just would not die down.
“Rotunda trial fails.” So
bannered Sun-Star Pampanga Monday.
With the bullet: “Not feasible says traffic exec.” And reported:
The temporary rotunda put on trial and dry run
Saturday afternoon altogether failed as personnel of the City of San Fernando’s
Traffic Management Unit removed the concrete barriers under the Dolores
flyover.
Early morning yesterday, TMU head Pines Pineda told
Sun-Star Pampanga that the rotunda proposed by [PamCham] vice chairman Rene Romero
was ‘not all feasible’…
“We decided to remove the barriers and put them back
in place in the usual route. Judging from the results of the trial and dry run,
we deemed it not possible to establish a permanent rotunda under the flyover,”
Pineda said…
At least, the city
government did not have to wait for the three-day trial to finish, calling it
quits after but a day, seeing the folly of its, and PamCham’s, making. DPWH’s
too.
What is really puzzling is
how Mayor Edwin Santiago, an engineer by profession, could have been swayed to
still go with this bird-brained scheme that is patently idiotic right on the
very shit of a paper it was blueprinted on.
A source in the regional
office of a national agency claimed that PamCham’s rotunda schema was
instantaneously thumbed down when it was presented before the Regional
Development Council, precisely owing to the constricted space where it was
proposed to be set. How Santiago was convinced to still go with it can only be
credited to the overpowering influence PamCham holds over him.
This does not augur well
with Santiago’s masa image impacted
in his Tsinelas ng EdSa campaign
blurb. The reality in the EdSa administration is not “Fernandino First” as sloganeered. It could very well be
“PamCham Foremost.”
Finally, an unsolicited
advice: If Santiago really, really wanted traffic congestion to ease in any
part of his city, all he needed to do is cry “T-Mac” and let Angeles City’s
Balibago village chief Tony Mamac do his own brand of gun-trafficking in the
streets of San Fernando. As he famously did along MacArthur Highway in his
barangay about two weeks ago.