Decongesting Traffic in a Green Way

If you still remember on my previous blog, I condemned those who cut the trees along Mc Arthur highway here in San Fernando Pampanga. The cutting of trees was previously halted due to the intervention of some environmentalist, but after few months they are back again. The hot temperature even after a strong rain, the heat wave and the previous devastating flood failed to encourage this group that global warming is for real and this due to the increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the air and rampant cutting of trees that clean them.

I learned that the reason they are cutting the trees is because of the road widening project. But the way I look at it, the widening of the road doesn't help in reducing traffic congestion. It looks like that traffic congestion is much worse today than before the roads were widened. They are also installing drainage system but the stretch of Mc Arthur highway in San Fernando is not being flooded because of the trees and grass on both side of the road.

The place where the trees were planted were paved to add additional lane, sad thing is the additional lane is not being used as road but a parking lot for big trucks car and public utility vehicles. Some enterprising individuals also put a stall for their merchandise on the additional lane.

I understand that we need to widen our roads due to the growing number of vehicles and to decongest traffic jam but if possible let's make it less damaging to the environment. For example in the Mc Arthur highway we can add additional lane without cutting the trees because the space between the trees and road boundary is big enough for one additional lane. These additional lanes can be intended for public utility vehicles, so that they will not block non passenger vehicles when they are loading and unloading passengers. These trees can also be used as barriers so that big trucks cannot park on the additional lane. Or the additional lane can also be used as bike lane which will become the first bike lane here in the Philippines, this will encourage Filipino to use bike instead of car because it is safe already to use bike because of the bike lane.

As we improve our roads we need also to improve our discipline. As I see now the traffic congestion is not cause by limited road space but rather due to lack of discipline of some individuals. The cutting of those trees doesn't worth in trying to resolve the problem cause by our lack of discipline. If only the person in charge of this project have a little care for the environment, he/she will also see that these trees were not the cause of traffic congestion.