Time was when Highway 54 was a two-lane road lined with acacia trees craning to see who was the rare interloper driving up or down the stretch from the Bonifacio Monument in Caloocan to Taft Avenue in Pasay City, exiting some places in between. That was in the 1950s, when greater Manila was rising from the destruction and setbacks of World War II and the Japanese occupation.

Construction of what was then called the North and South Circumferential Road began in 1939 under Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon, who had planned a new capital city, which became Quezon City. Highway 54 was C-4, meant to interconnect Quezon City, Manila, and Pasay. After World War II and the independence of the Philippines from the United States in 1946, it became known as Avenida 19 de Junio (June 19 Avenue), after the birth date of national hero José Rizal (bworldonline.com, May 25, 2018). In 1959, the formal name was changed to Epifanio de los Santos Ave., after the Rizal scholar, historian, and jurist.

Landscape architect, environmental planner, and urban designer Paulo Alcazaren related his own experience of the history of Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, still stubbornly called Highway 54 through the 1960s, and later to be called by its acronym “EDSA” by the 1970s in his column in The Philippine Star (Feb. 24, 2024):

“Highway 54 started as a two-lane asphalt road with large swathes of cogon field on either side of it. It widened to four lanes by the mid-1950s, but had no lighting and very little development along it except for the government’s housing ‘Projects,’ the private Philamlife Homes, as well as some commercial development at the highway’s two main “crossings” at Cubao in Quezon City and at Shaw Boulevard. The Shaw intersection was (and is still known) as “crossing”;

“…We crossed Highway 54 to get to school or to old Manila, where we would visit my grandfather or watch movies downtown. In the early 1960s, I remember the lonely stretch of the highway when I accompanied my father, a doctor, to a clinic for employees at the old ABS-CBN compound. It was a shack with one lone television tower;

“…In the 1970s and into the Martial Law years, traffic built up as suburban residential enclaves sprouted along EDSA and daily commutes to Makati and central Manila built up traffic rush hours. In 1978, when I started working in Makati, I was still able to get home to Barrio Kapitolyo in Pasig in 15 minutes, but every year the traffic got heavier and the government started building interchanges, flyovers, and underpasses along all the major intersections.

“…Post-People Power, Makati was joined by the Ortigas district and Cubao as CBDs (Central Business Districts) that serviced the larger metropolis. The old downtown of Binondo had relinquished its role to these satellites. These were threaded by EDSA like a string of pearls lit at dusk by headlamps of thousands of vehicles that plied its length.

“…The 1990s and the first two decades of the 21^st century have both seen EDSA evolve to become the key corridor for motorized transport for the metropolis. A light rail system was built to improve mobility for a population that now surpassed 10 million (with another few million commuting from beyond the boundaries of Metro Manila). This should have come first as rails systems are more efficient in moving people and the infrastructure could have been much less complicated than today’s reality of multi-layered interchanges that blight the cityscape and take up so much space.”

Yes, that’s the EDSA problem. It has grown into an unavoidable angry monster, already constipated with traffic way beyond its capacity that multiplied and compounded as the growing population has been funneled and force-fed into its dilated bowels. An average of 437,873 vehicles pass through EDSA each day, exceeding its carrying capacity of 250,000, government records show. During the Christmas season, the “MMDA expected travel along EDSA to become slower, with speeds dropping from the (then-current) average of 21 kilometers per hour to as low as 15 kph in the next two weeks,” said the Philippine Daily Inquirer (May 27).

EDSA is indeed the longest and the most congested highway in the metropolis, stretching some 23.8 kilometers. And it can hardly be avoided as it passes through six of Metro Manila’s 17 cities and municipality, namely, from north to south, Caloocan, Quezon City, San Juan, Mandaluyong, Makati, and Pasay. Sufferers of the chronic heavy traffic on EDSA have empirically tested that it would take 1.5 to two hours going to or from the Cubao crossing to the Buendia crossing in the peak hours between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m., or up to three hours on a bad day, like when it is raining (and not so strongly at that). Good luck and pray each time you decide to turn into EDSA from wherever — you are “caught” once you enter. Turning back will only bring you into deeper traffic on those small feeder roads where masochistic drivers wait some more, still insisting on proceeding via EDSA.

THE BANE OF FLYOVERS
Sitting in standstill traffic on EDSA, one must be alert, because the lanes narrow into three, or even two, from four at certain lengths of the avenue. Undisciplined drivers lined up beside or behind may suddenly go for that little gap between waiting vehicles, and enter your lane, squeezing in front of you, to go first when the traffic inches up slowly at 5 kph. Why did the MMDA — the Metro Manila Development Authority —  construct flyovers (the Kalayaan Flyover, the EDSA-Kamuning Flyover, the Ortigas Interchange, and the Magallanes-EDSA Flyover) and the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) over EDSA? Their support structures — huge concrete foundation posts and four-lane ascent/descent ramps — ate up precious lanes of EDSA under them. That’s why EDSA traffic moves so slowly!

The Civil Engineering Magazine (civilengineermag.com, May 12) says that of course, flyovers help with traffic control and safety for pedestrians. However, “they are not usually suitable for built-up areas because they require a large area. (These are) extremely expensive to construct …and a lack of proper management during the flyover construction process can lead to several issues (like cracks and weak foundations).”

Even as far back as 2011, Cebu City’s concerned residents called to “Stop the Cebu Flyovers!” The reason, according to the Cebu Daily News (Sept. 25, 2011), “why opposition to the planned flyovers is more intense than ever today, is precisely because these are now intruding into the urban core — a very private space which residents consider sacred. A public image of the City is being maintained by large numbers of the City’s inhabitants which they treasure and protect. With these new flyovers, the traditional sentiments and feelings of Cebuanos are being violated.

“Furthermore, the flyovers pose potential risks to safety and security. These huge infrastructures create dark and dingy spaces at night which are difficult to police. Reduced visibility violates the concepts of defensible space and discourages natural surveillance in urban areas which need it most. Such conditions contribute much to the degradation of the urban setting usually commencing a series of reactions from the public.”

It is too late for Metro-Manilans to cry out against the flyovers on EDSA that have blighted the landscape and even worsened traffic. Yet the MMDA seems still enamored with flyovers as the quick-fix glamor solution to the hoary EDSA problem. “Talks are underway for the construction of new flyovers that would serve as ramps for the EDSA busway and U-turn slots underneath for private vehicles to solve traffic congestion, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority said just before the COVID pandemic constrained movements,” said The Philippine Star (Nov. 27, 2020).

But now that COVID-19 is no longer the arbiter for movements and traffic, here the MMDA comes as gallant knight with brandished sword to tame the dragon EDSA. Until President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. called a sudden temporary halt to the project for further study, ground works maintenance and repair was to be done, section by section, on the length of EDSA, estimated to be completed in two years. An odd-even scheme was to be in effect starting June 16. About 50% of vehicles plying EDSA would have been grounded, to allow construction and repair on EDSA to be done more expeditiously. Protests from road users forced the MMDA to indefinitely postpone the odd-even traffic reduction scheme said the Manila Standard (June 5).

The propensity of every administration since Quezon to today’s Marcos Jr. to build, build, build in the short-term (for PR points) with little planning for the long-term (the I-will-not-be-there-anymore mentality) has been pathetically told by the history of EDSA’s problems which were foisted on the people. Yes, EDSA has to be repaired and refurbished at the ground level, but please no more flyovers, exit ramps, and fancy cloverleafs over the existing road network. There is no need to rush to spruce up EDSA before the presidential elections in 2028. Go slowly but surely.

There is still time to develop detailed long-term strategic planning, not only for EDSA, but for the other road systems of the country. The Build Better More infrastructure programs of President Marcos Jr. (costing P9 trillion) will be funded by the people’s taxes and government’s long-term borrowing which will be paid by coming generations.

To our leaders in government: be honest and true to your sworn duties to God, country, and the Filipino people.

Amelia H. C. Ylagan is a doctor of Business Administration from the University of the Philippines.

ahcylagan@yahoo.com