Manila Traffic - a crack of sunshine

In a city of 15-20 million - ish (who can ever know for sure?...), as you can imagine, traffic can be a bit of a problem sometimes. Like the first weekend we were here last year, when we attended a 'new staff' party. A journey that might have otherwise taken 15-20 minutes from our apartment took close to 2 hours. It was a Friday night - the worst traffic night. It was also raining, AND it happened to be the last working day of the month - pay day. (This always makes the traffic bad). And by the time we got to the village, the gates had 'closed' for public vehicles, so our bus (although private) was given a hard time, and some got out to walk the last few hundred metres.

Well, Manila has a few funny ways to deal with its traffic problem.

One attempt to reduce the volume of traffic is called 'colour coding'. Every car has one weekday where it's not allowed on the roads. While this sounds like a good idea, this system is fraught with difficulties. Our restricted day is Thursday, so all our trips between the "coding" hours are simply taken by taxi. Whether or not 'coding' increases the volume of taxis on the road is the first issue.

Another complication is that Metro Manila is divided into several 'cities'. Some cities (like Makati, where our apartment was) have 'coding' from 7am til 7pm. Easy to remember. However, now we live in Pasig city, and the coding is only during 'official' rush hour times, which is 7am - 10am, and then again 3pm-7pm. So if we can manage to do a school pick up at 2:15 and get home by 3pm, we theoretically don't need to use a taxi. Unfortunately, our trip from home in Pasig city to school in Fort Bonifacio city crosses one major road which is technically Makati city, so we could get caught out and be liable to a fine. (although I'm told the Makati traffic enforcers don't worry about that intersection from 10-3. We have certainly not had a problem yet.)

A third issue is that the traffic enforcers are particularly prone to corruption. So the only time when we've been caught out on 'coding day' (which was when we were driving home from holiday, and we forgot that it was Thursday when we returned to Manila), we were able to 'pay the fine here' with the traffic enforcer.

The other way that people get around 'coding' - for families with more than one car - is by simply driving a different vehicle that day. :)

Another (also very debatable) method used to help traffic problems is turning off the traffic lights. Yes, you read that right. Half the time, the traffic lights around the city are not working. Sometimes, it's clear they don't work, as they are either totally off, or flashing yellow, other times they are still 'going' but are to be ignored. Instead of traffic lights, a pointsman is on duty to guide the traffic. The idea is that the pointsman will be able to decide better than a traffic light which cars need to go through. You get used to pointsmen quite quickly, and there are all sorts of gadgets that they use to help them be seen. Most frequently, they wear a large reflective 'glove' that has red on the 'palm' side, and green on the 'back' side.

Well needless to say, sitting in traffic can be quite a negative experience. Frustration at being late, boredom at the time-wasting, even anger sometimes at the other drivers (or the pointsman himself!). This is why, when I first saw him, the 'dancing pointsman' totally made my day. In the middle of a 'negative' time, this pointsman put a huge grin on my face, and really did change my outlook. I've driven past the same intersection several times, and have been delighted to see him on duty many times, and he even has an apprentice - a young guy doing other shifts, who is imitating his ways by dancing his time away.

I was delighted to see a friend's blog about this dancing pointsman, so if you want to see him yourself, take a look here. It speaks for itself.