The funniest sign we saw on the way over was one which said: "Please use the pedestrian overpass, and lengthen your life." And of course, there were about 5 people crossing the highway at that exact moment. We looked for the pedestrian overpasses and noted something like... 5 of them for the ENTIRE stretch of Congressional from Philcoa to SM Fairview? Talk about hassles. No wonder people just cross when they feel like it. Not enough infrastructure is in place to aid them. Who cares about lengthening your life when you're in a hurry?

I thought: Who the hell designed this road? Who mapped out Quezon City in his mind and figured things out ahead of time? Manuel Quezon? Well, if so, he probably did not foresee that by the 1980's Fairview and its environs would be a major suburban residential area and should have more than one route into and out of it. Because there are thousands of people living here, there should be some sort of mass transportation system, preferably with parking facilities attached to its loading stations. But was anything of the sort taken into consideration? Doubt it. Maybe the problem was budget? Maybe it all went into someone's pockets.

Should have been, must be, need, want. The mantra of the poor Filipino.

Instead, what there is right now, is one highway--which let's face it, isn't even really a highway-- servicing an inhuman amount of traffic daily. It's a bottleneck. A hellhole. If you want to avoid traffic, it's either you leave Fairview before sunrise or by the morning coffee break. Which doesn't leave the regular joe much choice eh?

*

There are other examples of the lack of preparation for growth and expansion.

Marikina is in a similar bind, having only one major thoroughfare that exits at C-5, and isn't even wide enough to handle the volume of cars. Add that to the slow, woeful construction of the MRT along Aurora and you have eternally rabid commuters from Marikina ready to do you harm. Even C-5, near White Plains cannot service the load of vehicles that traverse it. Horrible horrible places.

Strangely enough, even the South Superhighway, despite the presence of a second-level highway, continues to congest at peak hours. What makes it worse is you can't just get off the bus or FX and have a snack at some vendor's balut stand, like along EDSA.

There are just too many examples and disappointments: Quezon Avenue's width. Taft Avenue's endless intersections. The entirely too narrow Aurora Boulevard. Makati Avenue. Buendia Avenue. The MRT's lack of parking facilities for commuters with vehicles. The haphazard way many of Metro Manila's streets connect. The sheer lack of mass transportation systems. Public markets that spill out onto the street.

Maybe the solution is to stop selling cars and opt for bicycles. Or to deport everyone back to the provinces. Or raze the entire city to the ground and build it from scratch. (Except my grandmother who survived the ordeal of World War 2, would slap me in the arm if she thought I were serious.)

The sad truth is there probably isn't much we can do today to correct the shortcomings of the past. And maybe that is why we cope with the traffic and the congestion and the lives we waste on the road-- because we think can't do much. Sigh.