The MMDA conducted road clearing operations along Katipunan Avenue this Tuesday. To be exact, they towed illegally parked vehicles in the area. We saw a fleet of tow trucks lined along C.P. Garcia Avenue prior to the operations.

There are many illegally parked vehicles along Katipunan and the side streets to it. It is partly due to parking minimums (as stipulated in the National Building Code) not being followed and mainly because of the dependence on cars and high car ownership attributed to residents there.

Operations like this by the MMDA or LGUs are important because spaces need to be reclaimed especially for pedestrians. There is of course their main objective of easing traffic along roads whose capacities were decreased by on street parking. Do these streets need to be redesigned? Maybe but not now considering the resources required for transformation. It’s not as easy as the examples being peddled on social media.

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