I USED to think that having more cars meant being more advanced as a society when I was a kid in the 1990s.
I spent countless hours playing with my toy cars and imagining complex road networks that I would design myself. Unlike many kids today, I was able to play outside and use the streets, and how they were meant to be used, to bring the community together.
Later on, my studies in sustainable architecture and urban planning helped me explain traffic in a more accurate light and helped me dissolve a lot of traffic myths I had. I learned that traffic is a symptom of an unbalanced economy and poor urban planning by prioritizing cars over moving people.
For decades, the Philippines has been notoriously famous for its poor management of traffic. The main response to traffic congestion has been to build more car infrastructure. The government has spent a large part of its budget on the construction of new roads, expressways and tollways. While the construction of new roads, at first, helps ease traffic, they ultimately fail to solve the congestion problem with private partnership. Their completion usually results in an even greater number of cars on the roads.
I have become intimately familiar with this cycle. Traffic gets worse. New roads are built. More people drive. Traffic returns. Then another road expansion is proposed as the next solution.
At first, this appears to be the best effort to address congestion. But looking deeper reveals something more concerning: a car-centric business model in which economic growth increasingly depends on more vehicles occupying our roads.
Consider the ecosystem that surrounds automobile dependency. Toll road operators benefit from increased vehicle traffic. Fuel companies sell more gasoline and diesel. Automotive manufacturers and dealers sell more vehicles. Real estate developers build homes further away from jobs so people are forced to buy cars. All of these businesses are good and even necessary, but the system promotes more driving rather than improving mobility.
These businesses are not bad. They create employment opportunities and economic activities. Most of the time, they provide much-needed services to the public. The problem arises when the incentives of the system collectively encourage more driving rather than better mobility.
Some of the country’s largest conglomerates participate in multiple parts of this ecosystem. They may develop toll roads and expressways while also operating businesses in property development, fuel retailing, logistics, construction and other transportation-related sectors. Again, there is nothing improper about diversification. Yet it raises an important policy question: If the economic system rewards rising vehicle dependence, who benefits from reducing it?
The irony is that this model benefits few corporations while imposing its greatest costs on ordinary Filipinos. Filipinos lose valuable time with their families spending hours stuck in traffic. There are losses in productivity in the business sector as goods and services move through urban areas dominated by inefficient and unmanageable transportation. Air quality worsens and transportation costs increase.
Perhaps the most tragic part is that we have come to accept this situation. New roads are greater “progress” in our minds. We ignore mass transportation, care-centric design that encourages walking, biking and transit-oriented development. We have misplaced our priority because we did not evaluate how easily people can get to jobs, schools and other services. Instead, we focus on how quickly cars move.
The cities with the highest livability in the world have taught us a lesson. We can have reduced dependence on private vehicles and a viable option for transportation by creating connected and compact communities. Success is achievable without constantly adding new highways. The goal of transportation should not be maximizing vehicle movement. It should be maximizing human well-being.
This is not an argument against expressways, tollways or private investment. These remain important components of a modern economy. What is important is if our transportation policies ensure that the welfare of the people is improved or if they build a system that requires more people to rely on cars and becomes more profitable over time.
If the only solutions to congestion result in more reliance on vehicles, higher fuel consumption, toll payments and longer trips, then we are not solving the real problem. Perhaps we are simply managing its symptoms.
As an advocate, I have come to understand that the future of mobility is not about building more roads for more cars. It is about building a country where Filipinos can live, work, study and be cared for without having to rely on cars every day.
Transportation should be for the people, not for a business model. If, after all the new roads built in the past decades, people still suffer, then we should ask ourselves if we are really solving traffic or if we are just finding better ways to profit from it.
Louwie Gan is an architect and urban planner. He is an internationally accredited sustainability expert who advocates for care-centric urbanism and regenerative development. He has worked as a sustainability and urban planning consultant for the government and other international organizations.
