Too many vehicles and too few roads - The Straits Times
People disdain public transport, so they buy cars the first chance they get. What emerges is a 640 sq km metropolis where two million vehicles are crammed on a road network no longer than 1,100km. That's roughly 2,000 vehicles per kilometre. Some 11 million of them take public transport. Governments are more keen to build roads that voters will see and admire for years to come than a public transport system that will have to be subsidised and will be under perpetual public scrutiny. The government has tried to reduce the number of private vehicles on the road by banning them on certain days of the week based on the last digit of their plate numbers. But that scheme only made things worse, as motorists bought extra cars on the second-hand market - where a 1993 Nissan Sentra can be had for 68,000 pesos (S$2,000) - to get around the ban. Unless you have a better public transportation system, those who can afford it will continue buying cars. "The key is to have a reliable, adequate and efficient land transportation system," said Mr Winston Ginez, head of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board. Governments did invest in a mass rapid transit system early on. Manila was the first city in South-east Asia to have such a service with the Manila Light Rail Transit System (LRT) rolled out in 1984. But governments have been slow to add lines to. Source: www.straitstimes.com
