MANILA — Department of Transportation (DOTr) Command and Control Operations Center chief Charlie Del Rosario on Tuesday encouraged the public to undergo a “paradigm shift” and use mass transportation instead of private vehicles to alleviate heavy vehicular traffic.
“We encourage the use of mass transportation here in Metro Manila because we know that there are too many motor vehicles on the roads, and those are private vehicles,” del Rosario said in a Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon briefing.
The traffic index of the TomTom International BV, a location technology company, said that Metro Manila topped 387 cities worldwide which were ranked in terms of metro area traffic.
Del Rosario also highlighted the government’s major public transportation projects — the Metro Manila subway and MRT-4 extension — which he believes will help reduce the usage of private vehicles.
He, however, acknowledged that decongesting major thoroughfares would not be easy.
“The construction of our subway [project] is still ongoing; we are exploring the possibility [that it will help solve the traffic] — because we cannot accomplish this in one go, it will take some time — so those projects are continuously being led by the Department of Transportation,” Del Rosario said.
“We just have to have that paradigm shift: a change in mindset that instead of using our private vehicles, let’s use mass transportation,” he added. (Luisa Cabato © Philippine Daily Inquirer)
