THE Philippines has been fast urbanizing over the last three decades and, by the middle of this century, four out of every five Filipinos will be living in cities. For Filipinos to have livable cities, the most attractive, safe and convenient modes of travel should be walking, cycling and public transport. Otherwise, we will be left with heavily polluted cities paralyzed by private motor vehicles in gridlock.
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has built a network of nearly 36,000 kilometers of national roads that are designed to serve mainly those in private motor vehicles. This prioritization of those in cars is highly questionable and unjust because, nationwide, only six percent of Filipino households are car owners. Today, about one-third of the DPWH’s national roads are found inside cities and are called national tertiary roads — roads with mainly urban functions, providing access to communities and local economic activities. These roads are usually the most important roads inside Philippine cities. By 2050, over two-thirds of the DPWH’s national roads will be national tertiary (urban) roads.
Filipinos in cities, especially the vast majority who are not in private cars, rely on these roads to move around — pedestrians, those on bicycles, and users of public transport. However, the DPWH, in its quest to create more kilometers of roads for motor vehicles, has made most of the major roads in Philippine cities unfriendly to anyone not in an automobile.
Roads are widened and trees cut down in order to create more space for cars. The end result is that pedestrians are left without safe spaces to walk, persons with disability face insurmountable barriers, there are no protected bicycle lanes to keep vulnerable road users safe, neighborhoods are left without any shade and grow increasingly warm and public transportation is left to be stuck in traffic. Millions of Filipinos face agonizing daily travel because of these difficulties.
The pro-car orientation of the DPWH stems from antiquated and inappropriate performance objectives that need to be discarded. For example, its district and provincial offices are rewarded for the number of kilometers of roads built and maintained for motor vehicle use regardless of any disadvantage suffered by road users without cars.
Another performance objective is to increase motor vehicle speed on national roads. In urban areas, this runs counter to the government’s road safety objectives and is one of the fundamental causes of an increasing number of road deaths.
There is no reward or incentive for anyone who transforms part of an existing road into a fully accessible sidewalk for persons with disability, a protected bike lane, or a dedicated lane for public transport vehicles. In fact, such is viewed as diminishing the DPWH’s accomplishment record and is therefore fiercely resisted by staff. Measures in cities that restrict cars on national roads but enhance the travel of people by public transport, walking and cycling are therefore not given much consideration.
The road expansion program in cities therefore signals to all Filipinos that they need to own private motor vehicles as soon as they can afford one. This is the recipe for worsening mobility for all. The reversal of this and the removal of the bias toward car use should be a top priority. The transformation of urban national roads so that they serve all road users needs to be the focus of the DPWH’s work.
It will need to undertake three important reforms as soon as possible in order to reverse the descent towards heavily vehicle-congested and polluted cities. First, it should revise agency performance targets and incentives in order to remove the bias for increased road space for cars and to replace it with a preference towards efficient and people-oriented travel modes. In its rewards system for staff and offices, the DPWH should offer special recognition and incentives for the conversion of existing vehicle road space in cities into high-quality sidewalks, protected bike lanes and dedicated public transport infrastructure.
Second, the DPWH should prepare a design manual for urban road infrastructure that will cater to the safety and mobility requirements of the entire range of road users, especially the most vulnerable — pedestrians, cyclists and persons with disability. Road designs should also include guidelines for landscaping and tree planting in order to reduce local temperatures (and counter the urban heat island effect) with more greenery and shade. The manual should include strategies for transforming existing car-oriented roads into safe, inclusive and people-oriented roads that will make Philippine cities more livable, including making some of the road completely car-free.
Third, the DPWH should create a unit and work stream that will focus on urban road transformation and provide it with the required budget. This should be in the core of the DPWH’s work for the next 30 years. It will respond to the president’s directive to ensure that roads all over the country prioritize pedestrians and commuters over private motor vehicles.
In this regard, I would like to commend Naga Mayor Leni Robredo and Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon for launching a project to upgrade Mt. Villanueva Avenue in Naga City. In this collaborative effort, a national tertiary road will be transformed to have wider and fully accessible sidewalks, dedicated bicycle lanes, designated public utility vehicle stops, underground cabling, landscaping and other people-friendly features. This needs to be replicated in all Philippine cities.
For the Philippines to have livable cities, it will be important for the DPWH to undertake its own institutional transformation so that the agency views the Filipino without a car as its main client. It will need to revise its targets, performance metrics, staff incentives, road design standards and budgets. It is a huge challenge, but I can’t think of a better person to handle this task than Secretary Dizon.
Robert Y. Siy is a development economist, city and regional planner, and public transport advocate.
