New and Used Car Talk Reviews Hot Cars Comparison Automotive Community

The Largest Car Forum in the Philippines

Results 1 to 5 of 5
  1. Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Posts
    894
    #1
    Hirap ng WOWing*, dami naiisip i-post... hehe. anyway, I hope this will be my last thread before I go offshift..antok na ako e. hehe.

    So me and our QC (Aussie) were talking about driving in the Philippines. Incidentally, he used to stay where I hail from and also have ex-pat pals who live in my area who work offshore. So, they're basically aware of the local driving "scenes"... anyway, the chat came to a point where we were both wondering why highways (particularly provincial highways) literally cut through city/town-propers and discussing how it might actually be better if just like in some town/cities in other countries I've been to where to get to the city you'd have to really get out of the highway first and on to the town/city's main road and not the main road=national highway.

    So taking my best shot at guessing how things got this way back home, national highways cutting through city/town propers, I said I thought maybe this was primarily because "cities" or "towns" aren't actually "designed" back home but rather they were "upgraded", say from a normal settlement->hamlet->village->township->cityhood, etc., through the pages of history. This goes hand in hand with the present national highway that cuts through it now, which used to be just a footpath, etc. With the exemption of Baguio City (CBD, etc.) and others who had a master plan before the huts became shop-houses then became buildings then skyscrapers, etc.

    The main thing about this is that, you'd actually expect a highway to be a (atleast) 4-lanes wide, fast-paced place and not stuck in congested traffic in the middle of the city/town (unless there's a pile up or something ofcourse), right? So basically I was thinking shouldn't this really be the case? that when you mention highway and you picture in your mind NLEX/SLEX type of black-tops (sans the toll gates if possible). Atleast with get the articulated trucks and buses out of the town/city centers. But then, the only practical solution we could come up in our chatter is for proper diversion/by-pass roads/highways (not something like the one in CSF where, yes it bypasses the City but it failed to exit AFTER the "university belt" to be more immune to traffic, so to speak).

    I'm tempted to ask, whether this is possible but I guess everything/anything is possible if you really put enough effort into something. So, intead my question would be "Do you think this would ever happen?". Pros and cons and do you think locals/LGUs would be open to such changes? etc...

    good day tsikoteers... see you all tonight.

    sidenote: I am aware that there are towns/cities back home that the highways don't cut throught them -- e.g. Vigan, I.S., etc.
    [SIZE=1]*Waiting on weather[/SIZE]
    Last edited by B2Bomber; July 6th, 2007 at 03:20 PM.

  2. Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Posts
    21,244
    #2
    Settlements sprouted around highways, then became towns then cities. That's why most of our highways cut through city centers.

  3. Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Posts
    1,744
    #3
    This reminds me of one of the underlying themes in the movie "Cars," wherein the construction of superhighways led to a decline in the number of motorists who stopped at small towns.

    Romantic notions aside though, I think it would be good if the NLEX was extended all the way up to region 1. This would probably be opposed by many local officials though, since travelers contribute significantly to the local economy in many places.

  4. Join Date
    May 2005
    Posts
    497
    #4
    actually the situation here is probably the same anywhere else in the world. The thing is, other countries built expressways/freeways to handle the volume of traffic which has increased significantly on local roads throughout time. In our case, this kind of infrastructure was not pursued earlier on, and now i guess it would be difficult to implement a major expressway connecting majority of the country.

  5. Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Posts
    894
    #5
    I guess it's never too late for a start. and ofcourse we can't possibly connect every major city, considering we live in an archipelago. but "real highways"/expressways/freeways can be built on each major island, not necessarily to connect all major cities at first. but atleast something close to that. then a network of such highways might be implemented afterwards to really connect all major cities.
    for starters "solidifying" the so-called Luzon loop and turning it to a "real highway" would be nice.

    [SIZE=1]PS: for VizMin residents I do hope you don't find my example to mean that I'm leaving you out, it's just that I'm not yet that too familiar with whatever major "loops" each island outside of Luzon may have.[/SIZE]

Of "Highways" and City/Town-propers