making sense (?) of metro manila's traffic

First, a disclaimer.

There's no solution here. Just a bit of insight why it "could be better" :- )

The jeepneys. Truth is they were supposed to be a temporary fix to the transportation situation after World War II but because of its easy to implement dynamic or low barrier to entry characteristic of "driver plus a refurbished World War II jeep", it endured up to our present time. But mind you, it was, again, supposed to be a temporary fix.

But why did the "jeepney system" only happen in such scale in the Philippines when much of Asia was on both side of World War II? The answer is, the Philippines was the most beloved place of our American colonizers in Asia. That when the Japanese invaded us, the same passion was shown but rooting from a different feeling. Manila was the second most devastated city after the war. Its infrastructure was in tatters. The jeepney was a quick fix both for transporting people and for employing them.

And then our "2nd" independence day came, 04 July 1946. Less than a year from the formal surrender of the Japanese on September 1945. How could a "new" country devastated by war and released from being a colony survive? Will it have enough?

Though the 1950s could be argued as better than the 1930s, it was simply, on hindsight, a halo effect of being an American colony. The spirit of nation building was simply not there, thus the slide. A temporary fix. Forgotten that it was supposed to be temporary. It was because of this that the jeepney system endured.

But it is not all bad.

Really.

It has some benefits that most people do not see because of the congestion it creates.

It's all bad if you need to have a constancy and if you need to cram more valuable activities in a day. A four (4) kilometer distance, at the height of the morning traffic, will take a little over 30 minutes to make riding a jeepney. And to me, that's bad. I'm not a seasoned marathon runner but I can run four (4) kilometers in less than 30 minutes but my students would not like that when I conduct our class. Plus of course the exhaust :- )

But the benefits kick in when you are looking for a very cheap mode of transportation. A transportation system where you pay for the same fare even if you choose to ride the more modern versions of it with Filipino rap on the background coming from jeep's surround sound system. On top of that, the customer is given the power to command where he wants to be picked up and where he wants to alight. That's a very customized service.

But this "customized" characteristic actually aggravates the situation. Transportation system experts like to use the "elevator system" as an analogy to understand transportation. For one, they share the stop-egress/ingress-close loop characteristics.

Experts would say that the jeepney system is like an elevator that stops on all floors and waits on all floors to be filled by people. Seen this way, what could be a cultural mark for Filipinos is actually an absurdity to most.

But who does not have an absurdity in their culture? :- )

Still, it must get better.

"... why think like mere men?"