Traffic In The City

For three days this week, from Monday till now, I’ve been stuck in heavy traffic one way or another, mostly on intersections even when it was not the usual peak time for motorists to be on the road, like 3:00 in the afternoon, when the streets are supposed to be a little sleepy and clear of traffic—-or 10:00 in the morning.

But as the days go by, I could sense how gradually the number of vehicles running on the narrow roads and avenues of this city had increased in dramatic terms (mostly Innovas and Fortuners and some Sorrentos, and a lot of Vios and second-hand Sportages) that I feel so strongly that the city government need to open up new roads or streets in order to counterbalance the increasing numbers of vehicles running, cutting straight into wide span of empty lots that are situated in between major street ways, mostly spreads of rice paddies while the others are just empty lots.

One major roadway was in fact built some years ago, threading into a vast vacant lot, nearly two square kilometers in proportion and is now popularly known as the Nunez Extension, nicknamed after the small street from where it had connected from (while it’s official road name is Maria Clara Avenue, after the late congresswoman and mayor of this city). It took so long to built that wide road and very costly too, wrought with legal problems, as owners and the city government went into a lengthy deadlock on the question about the right fair market value of the lots involved. The Nunez Extension experience merely bears out the inherent difficulty of building more new roads as not only it would entail a huge amount of government money—-money that is not easily found—-but also besotted by numerous strife such as lot ownership and the right price to sell or buy.

To be sure, if money is only sufficient, the city government of Zamboanga should by now excavating and digging holes into the ground, from every location of the city, from north to south, paving the way for more and more roads. But such is not the case. They say that constructing a kilometer of road today cost about several millions, in cement and labor and then on procurement of the lot from where it would be paved on.

So now, the traffic situation in this 3rd class city continues to worsen everyday. This must be the price of progress. Everyday, huge cargo trucks slither their way into contracted intersections and crawl into narrow streetways like a giant turtle, stagnating traffic and for every driver caught within it, it is like as if time had stood still and every driver in such condition would surely wish that the prices of hand-held TV’s would radically go down, for they would badly need one in such situation. Maybe 7.3 % GNP growth means more and more cargo trucks snaking into narrow streets, transporting more goods, from port to warehouse or vice-versa. To be sure, I was not seeing those huge trucks in the past on dead hours like 2 o’ clock in the afternoon or 10 o’ clock in the morning, at least not as often. Often, I would be so grumpy being stuck in a stagnated traffic caused by these giant mobiles, cursing them at times, for them being there, for navigating roads that are usually full of cars going home from school or offices. I would blame them incessantly—-sometimes by talking to myself while driving and being stuck in such heavy traffic—-and wondered out loudly why the h*ll they don’t get their own roads and navigate it away from the common transports. I thought those companies owning those trucks or of those cargoes being transported, should be obliged to built their own roads and not be a nuisance to the public commuters. But in reality, they would go bankrupt if they’d be required to build their own roads from port to warehouse, considering the cost of 1 kilometer of road today. And besides, our economy would suffer if goods and commodities were not transported on time and in the right amount of volume. So it’s a Catch 22 situation. I hate the trucks threading the roads, creating slow traffic—-very slow traffic to be precise—- but at the same time, the cargoes they are transporting might just contain my favorite cigarette brand or my kids favorite snacks, and if they ain’t on the stores by the time I get there, I might be cursing the trucks for not delivering them on time.

How I wish we were such a First World nation, like Germany or South Korea. By then, the city government of Zamboanga would not only be able to build new roads and avenues, but also install those nifty overpasses and underpasses, curving elegantly and circling gracefully thru major intersections, making the city a sight to behold if one stares at the city streets below from an airplane while above the sky, flying on a low elevation, while departing or arriving.

But such is not the case. Sigh. One Big Sigh.