THE city government of San Fernando, the adjacent municipality of Mexico as well as the management of the two giant malls in Pampanga should have anticipated and prepared for the holiday rush particularly on the traffic situation that has worsened since the start of the Yuletide.
The road in between the two giant malls has been converted, especially during the peak of rush hour, into the biggest parking area in the province because of the vehicles “stalled” by the non-flowing of vehicular traffic.
Motorists cannot help but to scratch their heads or their soles as they opt to walk rather than wait for the monstrous traffic jam to ease out and can finally reach their destinations.
For motorists who are not bound to go to malls are also adversely affected by the snarls despite the fact that they are not going to shop but merely passing through the road that is in between the said establishments and go to certain destinations.
Meanwhile, those who are going to the malls, they have no choice too except to brave the traffic. They have to bear the long queue of vehicles that waste not only time but fuel.
The wastage of fuel due to heavy traffic is inflationary as economists often say. Stuck cars waste fuel and even contribute to the pollution that we infuse to the air. The heat that is generated by a running engine also adds up to the abuse that we do to our environment.
There are many reasons that we may perhaps attribute why the poor traffic conditions that motorists experience these days.
First: The volume of vehicles and people going to malls is rising. This is the reason why we call it a holiday rush because of people rushing to the malls to buy something or have some good time with families or friends inside shopping meccas.
While the volume of vehicles on our roads increases, our roads do not. Well, there are some road widening projects that were implemented. These however cannot still cope up with the number of vehicles that ply our roads today.
Second: The locations of some malls are very strategic, but only for the investors and businessmen. Their locations however, are not strategic to motorists, to traffic and to law enforcers since they cause a lot of traffic jams. Ideally, malls should be a little far from main roads so they cannot cause traffic jams.
We can blame perhaps the lack of urban planning in some provinces and cities which result into the wrong locations of malls alongside busy roads.
Third: There are a lot of drivers who lacks discipline and courtesy to others. This is manifested usually when some motorists drive counter the flow of vehicles on the roads. Is it not counter-flowing became a concern of the past government administration? That is because the same is a major source of traffic jams.
In other countries, drivers are very courteous that they let other motorists pass through. In our country, road grabbing is normal.
At this time of the year, local governments and mall managements should be implementing measures to somehow fix traffic jams that are very prevalent in roads near malls and other shopping establishments.
It’s never too late to avoid being late anyway because of irritating traffic snarls.