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Category Archives: Infrastructure
Who can design bikeways?
I have read many comments about how bike lanes and other bike facilities are sub-standard or unacceptable because they were designed by non-cyclists. From an academic perspective and perhaps also from a point of view of someone who values empathy, the planning and design of bicycle facilities should not be so limited. The objective of education, and particularly for schools whose graduates become professionals like engineers, architects and planners, should be to have the latter be able to plan and design the most suitable infrastructure and facilities for all users. Suitability here should include equity considering the many elements involved for people of different gender, physical ability or disability, age, health conditions, etc. That said, it is the responsibility of agencies such as the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to revise and update their design manuals and guidelines to ensure that these are according to International standards and mindful of the best practices in various cities and countries that are now very well documented.
Bike lane in BGC,Taguig City
Bike lane and jogging/walking lane in UP Diliman
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On animal – vehicle collissions
We feature a different type of road crash today – one involving wildlife and vehicles. This is not something new as I am sure you’ve seen all those road kills (usually cats or dogs) along many of our streets and highways. These don’t even include the frogs, birds and other animals that are killed by motor vehicle traffic. Here is an informative article on such crashes or collisions and what can be done to address them.
Skroch, M. (October 4, 2022) “The dreadful toll of wildlife – vehicle collisions – and what we can do about it,” Governing, https://www.governing.com/now/the-dreadful-toll-of-wildlife-vehicle-collisions-and-what-we-can-do-about-it [Last accessed: 10/10/2020]
To quote from the article:
“Advances in research technology over the past decade have revolutionized experts’ understanding of how wildlife move across landscapes and are now helping to resolve wildlife-vehicle conflicts that are rising due to increased development. One example is GPS collars that are affixed to big game, as well as other mammals and birds, and transmit electronic signals via satellite from some of the most remote regions in the U.S. to researchers throughout the country. This data captures exactly where and when animals move within large landscapes, enabling scientists and engineers to pinpoint where the construction of wildlife crossings — mostly overpasses and underpasses that help animals traverse highways — can most effectively improve motorist safety and facilitate animal migrations. Studies show that a well-placed underpass or overpass can reduce wildlife-vehicle accidents by over 90 percent, providing a high rate of return on federal and state investments in such structures.”
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On electric vehicles and informal transport
I’ve been involved in studies on electric vehicles and their applications in the past. I continue to take part in studies about informal transport including continuing research on motorcycle taxis or “habal-habal” as they are called in the Philippines. The combination of the two is an interesting research area and there are many topics that can be developed as we determine the most appropriate applications for electric vehicles. Here is an interesting article on electrifying informal transport that sets the context for research:
Ribet, L. (August 30, 2022) “The role of data in electrifying informal transport,” Slocat partnership, https://slocat.net/the-role-of-data-in-electrifying-informal-transport/ [Last accessed: 9/9/2022]
To quote from the article:
“However, electric two-and-three wheeler startups, informal transport retrofitting pilots and e-bus initiatives cannot be the only answer to the mobility challenges facing developing cities. Phasing out oil-reliant public transportation is needed and investing in electric mobility solutions may well improve the overall picture quite substantially, but there is a far larger challenge that is omitted from these ambitions: addressing the complex operations of informal transport systems that characterise lower-income countries’ urban mobility. Electrifying minibus taxis is not synonymous with more reliable, affordable and convenient public transport, and we need to prioritise the understanding and improvement of overall informal transport systems data first.”
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The wide Roman Highway, Bataan
As it is National Heroes Day today, I thought it would be nice to feature a road in an area that witnessed the experiences and sacrifices of many heroes. I traveled to Bataan last July and took some photos of the roads there including the Roman Highway, which is the main corridor connecting many of the province’s major towns. Also called the Roman Superhighway, the highway originally had 2 lanes (bi-directional and undivided) with shoulders along both side of the road. Eventually, it was widened and extended to 4 lanes (2 per direction) with wide shoulders. The current Roman Highway has been expanded to 6 lanes with shoulders but for most parts appear to effectively have only 4 lanes and paved shoulders.
The wide Roman Highway does not carry much vehicular traffic
The road widening is not complete as most bridges have not been widened. These produce bottlenecks like the one in the photo where the additional lane is effectively relegated to a shoulder.
The highway is practically straight but presents many examples of sags and crests. For those into highway engineering, images like the ones I share in this post are textbook examples for sight distance topics.
Another sag vertical curve with a bridge near or at the lowest point in the sag. Again, notice that the additional lanes are currently discontinuous at the bridge and there’s a barrier (orange) to warn motorists and guide them back to the original carriageway.
The highway is used by many trucks as there are industrial centers located along the highway including the PNOC in Limay and what used to be called the Bataan Export Processing Zone (BEPZ now the Bataan Freeport) at the end of the highway in Mariveles.
The widening of the Roman Highway includes the addition of one lane per direction and a narrow shoulder just before the sidewalks. The shoulder could easily be configured into a bike lane but that third lane can easily be designated for bicycles considering the traffic is usually light at most sections of the highway.
A section where the bridge has already been widened features 3 wide lanes per direction. The shoulders are still there but are not included in the bridge.
LGUs are joining the No-Contact Apprehension bandwagon
Another view of the wide highway
More on Bataan roads in a future post. I also took photos of the Gov. J.J. Linao National Road (Pilar – Bagac Road), which is the main access road to the Mt. Samat Shrine.
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MRT 4 on the way – a monorail along the Ortigas Avenue corridor
I’ve seen and read articles and discussions about the proposed MRT Line 4 along Ortigas Avenue. I’ve written about having a mass transit line along this corridor in the past as it is one of my alternate routes between our home and my workplace. The Line will have the following stations (based on the news articles that came out):
- Taytay – likely at the junction near the Taytay Public Market;
- Manila East Road – likely near SM City Taytay;
- Tikling Junction – major transfer station for those going to Antipolo and beyond;
- San Juan – (future/provisional station) near Valley Golf; will probably materialize when Sierra Valley is completed and occupied;
- Cainta Junction – major transfer station for those heading towards Marcos Highway;
- St. Joseph – likely near or across SM City East Ortigas;
- Rosario – major transfer station for those going to Pasig, Marikina and even Quezon City
- Tiendesitas – (future/provisional station) possible transfer for people traveling along C5;
- Meralco – likely near the Meralco main gate;
- EDSA – likely across Robinsons Galeria and another major transfer station;
- Greenshills – likely across Virra Mall;
- Bonny Serrano – likely near the junction and transfer for people heading towards Camp Crame; and
- N. Domingo – end station connecting to Line 2 at Gilmore.
Following are photos of the current soil test locations for Line 4, all of which are along the eastbound side of Ortigas Avenue Extension between Cainta Junction and Tikling Junction:
Soil test across the former G-Liner
Soil test near Brookside
Soil test before Valley Golf near Mandaue Foam
Soil test just after the junction with Valley Golf across from the Primark commercial center.
I will not be commenting on Line 4 and its being a monorail at this point. I will probably be writing about this and the idea of having cable cars for Rizal in another post.
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On university-community collaborations
I’m not a stranger to university-community collaborations. In fact, I even helped draft a proposal for the World Bank to support such collaborations, which I believe would be sustainable and therefore worthwhile to be pursued by potential partner universities and local government units. There are actually many such collaborations but most of these are probably informal with certain faculty members of universities (usually state universities or colleges) being involved in committees or moonlighting in projects implemented or funded by LGUs. I say informal because technically, the school is not involved in the project and it is only incidental that the person or persons involved are affiliated with the university or college.
Here is an article showing an example of university-community collaborations:
National Institute for Transportation and Communities (2022) “Transportation recovery after disasters: A collaborative university/community model,” phys.org, https://phys.org/news/2022-08-recovery-disasters-collaborative-universitycommunity.html [Last accessed: 8/15/2022]
The authors wrote about actions that could be done “to build future economic resilience.” To quote from the article:
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Increasing pre-disaster investment in resilient transportation infrastructure to reduce the cost of eventual recovery;
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Improving business resilience practices for high-impact industrial sectors, through education and outreach;
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Identifying structural barriers to adoption of resilient business practices, and promoting mitigation through recovery.
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Mainstreaming disaster resilience into economic development by breaking the siloed approach to emergency management and economic development.
While these actions were framed for the community engaged by the University of Utah, they are general enough to be applicable to other communities as well.
I mentioned earlier about the need for formality. The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) encourages and supports what are termed as Extension Works or Extension Projects by higher education institutions. These may be in various forms including committee work, advisory, capacity building/training, or even professional work/services provided to the province, city or municipality (even barangay). But there should be accountability here as well as the proper assignment or allocation of resources.
Just compensation is one of the more sensitive or tricky elements or items here as often, LGUs would like to get something for free or assume that certain services are free. They are not and time and effort should be compensated; just not the international rates you might expect for consulting work from the likes of World Bank or Asian Development Bank.
Here is where contracts (e.g., in the form of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) or Memorandum of Agreement (MOA)) can be useful to establish the terms of engagement that includes budgets for Personnel Services (PS), Equipment Outlay (EO) and Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE). The latter categories should be familiar with LGUs because these are standard items under which details are provided for their programs and projects. State universities and colleges are also familiar with these as standard government terminologies for budgets. Of course, that goes without saying that in certain engagements, there may be third parties such as donor or funding institutions that will should all, most, or part of the costs for collaborative work.
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On using advanced tools for infrastructure assessments
I came upon this article on how transportation departments in the US are using tools such as drones to assess critical infrastructure including roads and bridges. This is very relevant to us especially as many similar infra are aging and would need to be assessed to determine how to reinforce, retrofit or even rehabilitate certain infrastructure vs. naturally occurring phenomena like earthquakes and typhoons.
Reed, J. (August 2, 2022) “How Transportation Departments Are Using Advanced Drone Technology for Infrastructure Assessments,” Aviation Today, https://www.aviationtoday.com/2022/08/02/transportation-departments-using-advanced-drone-technology-infrastructure-inspections/ [Last accessed: 8/4/2022]
To quote from the article:
“The WVDOT may expand its drone programs to perform road safety assessments and to assist in designing new road routes by providing topographical maps.”
I recall that there have been road-based surveys involving Lidar to map the road and adjacent land surfaces about a decade ago (maybe less). This was a nationwide project funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and implemented by the University of the Philippines Diliman’s Department of Geodetic Engineering. I’m not sure where that data is stored or hosted but the DGE should have a back-up somewhere that can be used or further processed for road safety assessment applications. This could be an interesting and fruitful research area that can involve people from various disciplines.
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On the benefits of developing and investing in active and public transportation
Here is another quick share of an article with a very relevant and timely topic – the business case for multimodal transport planning:
Litman, T. (July 2022) “The Business Case for Multimodal Transportation Planning,” Planetizen, https://www.planetizen.com/blogs/117697-business-case-multimodal-transportation-planning?utm_source=newswire&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news-07142022&mc_cid=03c159ebcf&mc_eid=9ccfe464b1 [Last accessed: 7/15/2022]
To quote from the article:
“Conventional planning tends to undervalue non-auto mode improvements by assuming that each additional mile of their travel can reduce, at best, one vehicle mile traveled. In fact, in many situations they can leverage much larger reductions in vehicle travel, meaning that each additional mile of walking, bicycling, or public transit can reduce more than one vehicle mile … As a result, walking, bicycling and public transit improvements can provide much larger vehicle travel reductions and benefits than is commonly recognized.”
There is a box referred to in the preceding quote. I will not reproduce it here so I leave it up to the reader to go to the original article by Litman to find out how active and public transport can leverage additional travel reductions. Understanding these and the extend by which we can be independent of car-use (referring to non-car travel demand) will allow for a better appreciation, travel-wise and economics or business-wise, of the advantages of developing and investing in active and public transportation infrastructure and services.
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A Bike Master Plan for Metro Manila, Metro Cebu and Metro Davao
Before Active Transport Week concludes this weekend, I would just like to share this collage from one of our staff at the National Center for Transportation Studies of the University of the Philippines Diliman. It is about the Master Plan developed for the three metropolitan areas in the country – Metro Manila, Metro Cebu and Metro Davao. I will share more details about this soon including a link or links to where you can download a copy of the plan.
The project concluded recently with the submission of the Final Report but most important is the Master Plan document that can serve as a reference for further development of bike lanes in the metropolises. I’ve seen the Master Plan and many of its provisions and recommendations can easily be adopted or is replicable in other cities and municipalities in the country. Perhaps, there should be a National Master Plan?
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Flashback: Transport Infrastructure Framework Plan for the Philippines
I was reading an article yesterday about the outgoing NEDA Director General stating that Philippines needing a long term strategy for infrastructure development that will address the shortcomings or gaps due to unsolicited proposals. There was already something like this drafted almost a decade ago and under the auspices of the returning NEDA DG. Unfortunately, while NEDA accepted the Final Report of the study, they never adopted it as a policy that could also be imposed on agencies like the DOTr (still DOTC back then) and the DPWH. So for a sort of Throwback Thursday and on the last day of the Duterte Administration, I am sharing the promotional video produced for the framework plan that was supported by The World Bank.
The study was conducted by Cambridge Systematics (not related to Cambridge Analytics as far as I know) and was implemented at the same time as the JICA Dream Plan study for Mega Manila. I recall there is also a video on the latter and it listed all the infrastructure projects needed to address the transport problems of the Greater Capital Region. The Infra Framework Plan for the country mentions the various infrastructure projects ongoing and proposed for the Philippines but focuses on the soft side (i.e., strategies) including the reforms and institutional set-up that need to be in place for everything to come together and produce the desired outcomes in the long term. Sadly, strategies and plans are not well appreciated despite their being essential as foundations. While the Build, Build, Build mantra of the outgoing administration is worth praising for attempting to do the catch-up needed in as far as certain transport infrastructure is concerned, it falls short of what are necessary and to be prioritized. Instead, it ended up accommodating projects that are “nice to have” but should not be prioritized considering our limited resources and the undesirable foreign debt racked up by government. Hopefully, the returning NEDA DG and other officials will be able to steer the country clear of the current and future crises that may end up bringing more hardships on Filipinos.
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Caught (up) in traffic 