Half of EDSA for bikers, pedestrians only on June 28

[Monseratto]

Shows how brilliant Chariman Beautiful Eyes is, turning a major throughfare into a park... You've been warned!

MANILA, Philippines – Another revolution is set to take place on Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue (EDSA) on Sunday, June 28.

For the first time ever, Metro Manila's main thoroughfare will become a shared road, with one half of both its north- and south-bound lanes devoted to pedestrians and bikers, and the other half for vehicles.

The Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) announced on Monday, June 22, that this road-sharing will take place from 12 am to 11:59 pm on Sunday.

Only one portion of EDSA will follow the road-sharing scheme – the area from Ortigas to SM Mall of Asia in Pasay. The halving of the roads will be implemented on both the south-bound and north-bound lanes.

Each EDSA lane is composed of 5 smaller lanes. They will be divided as follows:

Lane 1 (lane closest to existing sidewalks) - Walk lane

Lane 2 - Bike lane

Lane 3 - City buses

Lane 4 - Provincial buses and private vehicles

Lane 5 - Private vehicles


The aim of the road-sharing scheme is to introduce a transportation system with a reduced number of private cars, said renowned environmental lawyer Antonio Oposa Jr, the mastermind behind the Share the Road movement.

"Why is there traffic? Because we have too many cars. The whole point of this exercise is to improve transportation using existing resources," he said during the press conference.

Heroism on the road

Road-sharing, he says, is an exercise of the "Bayanihan sa Daan" principle in which the road becomes a venue for people to practice cooperative heroism.

The overall goal of the movement is to improve traffic in Philippine cities. The hope is that an equally distributed road will encourage more people to walk or bike, lessening the number of cars on the road.

Less than 1% of Filipinos own cars, says Oposa, yet they are given a lion's share of the road. Pedestrians, meanwhile, make do with tiny, often rutted, sidewalks. Bikers too have to make the most of bike lanes not respected by all motorists.

With one half of each of the lanes devoid of cars, pedestrians and bikers are given a wider space.

"I have full support for this program, for any effort to clean our air, improve health of our citizens, and ease traffic," said MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino.

He said this was only a "proof of concept" and trial, "so we can see what will happen, if it will work."

But the share-the-road scheme has also been criticized for doing the exact opposite – aggravating traffic woes.

When a similar event was held on Osmeña Boulevard in Cebu City, it was badly received by private car drivers and jeepney drivers who had to endure traffic jams caused by road closures.

But Oposa says the congestion was due to a lack of communication, not the road exercise itself.

He appealed to private car drivers to take an alternative route since they will only be given only 2 out of 5 lanes on EDSA.

Half of EDSA for bikers, pedestrians only on June 28

[Challenger75]

This will be remembered as "The day EDSA stood still." Btw, pls provide source of the article so we can verify.

[cast_no_shadow]

no lane for MCs?? or considered sila na bike?

[BratPAQ]

Half of EDSA for bikers, pedestrians only on June 28

[cast_no_shadow]

so ang bus pwede lang magsakay/magbaba ng pasahero is ortigas and MOA?

wala ng hintuan?

tapos they are encouraging the public to take the public transpo?

pano kung bababa sa Boni? buendia? ayala? magallanes?

Sa MOA / Ortigas kayo bumaba!

[Stoner]

...then commuters will still take over other lane(s) to wait for PUB's.

It will all start when one stands far out the outer edge of lane 2 as a 'diskarte' to first get into arriving buses. Others will soon follow suit, city buses will straddle/occupy lanes 3-to-4, and the rest is history.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

...then commuters will still take over other lane(s) to wait for PUB's.

It will all start when one stands far out the outer edge of lane 2 as a 'diskarte' to first get into arriving buses. Others will soon follow suit, city buses will straddle/occupy lanes 3-to-4, and the rest is history.

[17Sphynx17]

Is this even real? Only rappler seems to have "published" this and no other local news organization (for now) has even reported about this.

[leodawesome]

MCs take any lane anyway, baka kaya di na sila ni-specify.

[ess]

By 12:00AM, June 29, the exercise ends.
Balik sa lanes 1-2 yung mga bus, tapos mangangarera pa. Any pedestrians and cyclists still there will be roadkill!

[ramones283]

This is dangerous. Biking on edsa with bus on its side? And the only protection of the bikers and people are cones? Much better put a solid divider there or atleast a concrete divider.

[Calistro]

A designated walk lane, outside the sidewalk? So meron pang bazaar para sa mga sidewalk vendors sa sunday heheh

[Monseratto]

I wonder how will that work in sections of EDSA that are bottleknecks (from 6 lanes to 3-2 lanes) ...

[chronicle]

Wow. High ata ang nagpropose dito. Gusto ba nila masagasaan ang mga tao. Yubg mga bus naman, gigitgitin ang bike lane para maka kuha nang pasahero. I will not be surprised kung may maaksidente dito. Very very bad plan.

[grand kotse]

Nanonood ako ng ANC news at QRT ng gmanewsTV bat hindi naman ito ibinabalita. Dàpat sana headline itong news na ito.

Update. Nabalita na rin sa QRT. Plano pa lang pala to.

[newtocar]

Anong klaseng solusyon to? Kung gusto nila ng maluwag na sidewalk para sa pedestrian, totally ipagbawal nila mga nag titinda sa sidewalk, sa dami ng private cars, ung iba kasi para makaiwas sa coding bibili ng maraming sasakyan para iba iba ending ng plate, which defeats the purpose ng coding scheme, hindi nababawasan sasakyan dumadami pa. Gumawa kayo ng elevated highway at subway para sa public transport.

[cast_no_shadow]

^

Bro proof of concept pa lang hindi solusyon agad yan.

Yang mga suggestions mo? Easier said than done. Obviously yan ang kailangan natin. Since iba ang proseso ng gobyerno natin kaya kung ano anong brilliant ideas ang ineentertain nila.


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[Syuryuken]

ang liit na nga ng EDSA paliliitin pa

[ramones283]

Kanina lang napanuod ko ito, sinisisi ng chairman ng MMDA ung mga naka private cars kaya daw nagta-traffic. Kaya mas mabuti daw mag bike at maglakad nalang or mag commute. Nagpapansin na si tolentino, baka tatakbo din itong presidente kagaya ni bayani nuon.

[_Cathy_]

This can't be real

[keto]

Good intentions but very half baked implementation. Those who bike to work usually have the sense to stay away from EDSA because of the buses.