Do we really need another expense?

The proposal by a business leader for the government to appoint a Cabinet-level "traffic czar" who will be in charge of all traffic-related concerns looks good on the surface, but may actually be unnecessary or perhaps even counter-productive.

      

Traffic congestion in Metro Manila has grown more horrible in recent years due in part to a situation  where there are more vehicles on the road and few new roads being built.

      

But that's only one aspect of the problem. The MMDA has been reinforced with more traffic constables but they seem unable to cope with the bigger number of vehicles on the road and the lack of discipline among our drivers.

      

The traffic problem cannot be solved piecemeal. You can have a traffic czar who attends Cabinet meetings, but wasn't that the main responsibility of the MMDA chairman who now wants to be senator?

      

Designating a Cabinet-level person as the solution to horrendous traffic is too simplistic. 

      

Remember that a former  senator was designated as Cabinet-level rehabilitation czar for Tacloban and other Yolanda-hit areas, but wasn't given any budget. Result: he could not get anything done except a comprehensive plan for rehabilitation and reconstruction that would cost tens of billions of pesos, and resigned in a huff.  

      

That's what's exactly going to happen with a traffic czar who simply cannot get past the DPWH or DOTC secretaries and dictate to them what he feels is needed to solve the traffic problem.

      

What we need to do is to upgrade and expand the light rail system to cover more areas. Can the traffic czar do this? No.

      

We also need to build more road infrastructure, which is part of the function of  DPWH.  Will DPWH allow the traffic czar to have his way in building new roads? We seriously doubt it.  

      

Traffic also becomes unbearable because of floods that take place during half of every year. What can the traffic czar do about floods? Absolutely nothing.

      

We don’t need another Cabinet-level person to handle traffic. Let the police and the MMDA do the job of untangling traffic, but first weed out the undesirables, the misfits and scalawag in their ranks. –End-

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