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Tag Archives: commuting
Musings on rainy day commutes
I sympathize with a lot of people whose activities were disrupted by the inclement weather the past days. The rains from the other night and today resulted in floods around Metro Manila and Rizal (where I live). The forecast of more rains during the past days made government suspend classes at all levels for both public and private schools. However, many and particularly students have already traveled to their schools as some announcements came late or not early enough for those who usually leave home early to avoid the usual traffic congestion around schools.
I myself used to leave our home early to go to school. As I took public transportation to the university, I had to leave before 6:00 AM (even earlier if it was raining) to be able to get a jeepney ride and have a comfortable trip (shorter travel time than when I leave later in the morning). I had one transfer at what used to be the K-Mart terminal. Both legs of the trip were via jeepneys. I recall silently cursing the guards at Ateneo for prioritizing what seemed to be an infinite number of cars entering and exiting that university via their Gates 2 and 3. At the time, Ateneo still operated the blue school buses and you can see few students on those buses. I observed already then that most of their students probably had their own vehicles to take them to school. Once past the gauntlet of Ateneo and Miriam (which was Maryknoll before), traffic was smoother. And to think that there was no C.P. Garcia yet and Katipunan at the UP Diliman and MWSS areas was not as wide as it is now. The old Katipunan section was basically a two lane road with UP on one side and MWSS on the other. What is now a center island with large acacia trees used to be the frontage of MWSS. UP’s walls were lined with eateries and small stores catering to students and workers.
My commutes during the wet season can be quite difficult as you can’t simply hang on to the jeepney (at the back) when it’s pouring. And when the weather’s particularly bad, there were flooding along my route, not to mention where I resided. I also remember wading in floodwaters along Katipunan (yes, there were floods along Katipunan before) because the road was impassable to vehicles and the only way to get home was to walk from UP to Aurora Boulevard. Our home in Cainta was often flooded during typhoons, and I also waded in floodwaters along portions of Felix/Imelda Avenue an in our village. The flood experiences probably deserve separate articles here and I will share some stories as soon as I can organize my thoughts and memories of these. Of course, I will relate these to transportation as there were lots I learned from these experiences. The frustration though is that it seems we have yet to do in order to address climate’s and weather’s impacts on transportation.
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Transport strike again?
There’s a 3-day transport scheduled starting tomorrow when the current President delivers the annual State of the Nation Address (SONA). The reason is reported to be to protest the government’s Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program (PUVMP). I wrote a 4-part series on these strikes earlier this year and stated that such actions have been diminished over the years especially with government and its agents learning how to use conventional and social media to their advantage. That is, if you have a troll army at your disposal, you will definitely use it and take advantage of the commuting public’s growing perception (as influenced by government’s narratives) that the strikes are unnecessary and based on unfounded gripes. So the blame goes to the drivers and operators and the organizers rather than on the government agencies even despite the legitimate arguments by the former. In this case, it’s supposed to be about PUVMP but most commuters are indifferent about supporting the strike as it can be viewed as vs. modernization of public transport, which people link to improvement (i.e., modernization = improvement).
Here is the link to the last and concluding article in the series:
A brief history of transport strikes – Part 4: impacts and implications
I think my conclusion and the observations I presented in the series still holds. Given the resources and the alternatives to counter the potential impacts of a strike, going through with one presents a likely failure to get support from commuters in general.
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Learning to commute in Singapore
In a recent trip to Singapore, we took advantage of their excellent public transportation system to teach our daughter about commuting using public transport. It will be useful for future travels especially in countries we plan to visit that also have similar transit systems.
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| Descending to the subway station near our hotel |
At the station level, one needs some sense of direction and the layout of the station to know where to get a card or tickets and where to enter the station towards the platforms.
Station and train information are available and very visible in SMRT stations
Network maps help one plan a trip including determining where you can transfer from one line to another. While there can be many transfer stations, the key is to determine the least number of stations as presumably this will lead to less travel time. Offhand, a familiarity with stations may also be useful to determine where it is easier to transfer (i.e., same platform for two lines rather than having to walk, ascend or descend to transfer).
Singapore’s transit system employs ezlink cards for the convenience of commuters. We got one each and its nice that we got these cards with the Doraemon design.
It took only a couple of rides for our daughter to learn how to commute in Singapore. That’s how easy it was and it should be very similar if we’re traveling to Japan or Korea, even Europe at some point. The public transportation in cities in those countries are really good and easy to figure out and use. Hopefully, we can soon take her to learn how to use the LRT in Metro Manila and perhaps also the bus and jeepney. That will be an interesting experience.
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On noise and how it affects your health
I am sharing this article on noise that was recently published in The New York Times:
Baumgaertner, E., et al (June 9, 2023) “Noise Could Take Years Off Your Life. Here’s How,” The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/09/health/noise-exposure-health-impacts.html?smid=url-share [Last accessed: 6/13/2023]
To quote from the article:
“European countries have far outpaced the rest of the world in regulating noise. The European Union requires member nations to monitor and assess sound levels across regions and to produce new action plans every five years to address communities at greatest risk. The E.U. now mandates quiet brake locks on rail freight fleets and noise labels on outdoor power equipment; it also requires noise reduction in car manufacturing and mitigation efforts at airports.
Individual cities and countries have taken additional measures. Paris has installed noise cameras that measure the sound level of vehicles and fine drivers who exceed them. Berlin has used new bike lanes to reduce the flow of engine-powered vehicles and move the source of the noise to the center of the road, away from houses. Switzerland has introduced national “quiet hours” — overnight, one midday hour on weekdays, and all day on Sundays.
While scientists say it’s too soon to make a prediction about the effects of these policies on cardiovascular health, several European countries have reported tens of thousands fewer residents exposed to major sources of noise.
Like many health issues, protection against noise would be economically advantageous. Economists who analyzed health care spending and productivity loss because of heart disease and hypertension have argued that a 5 dB reduction in U.S. noise could result in an annual benefit of $3.9 billion.”
Not everyone is aware of how noise may affect our health. Most of us are exposed to noise of different levels and lengths of time (i.e., duration). We probably take for granted, for example, the noises we hear during our commutes or perhaps the noises in our workplaces. These actually take a toll not just on our hearing (e.g., long time factory workers likely have hearing problems after they retire) but other aspects of our health as well. Long commutes inside jeepneys blaring music can do damage to your health. Noise from busy streets will cause damage to the health of those residing along these streets. Are we doing anything to mitigate such noise in the Philippines?
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Shared rides, anyone?
Would you share your ride with other people? This is not the conventional ride-sharing where you drive for someone else (i.e., Grab, Uber, etc.) but refers to a passenger sharing the vehicle he/she booked with another passenger or passengers. This is supposed to reduce the cost of the ride but can lead to more distance traveled as the matching of passengers has not been perfected. That is, it is likely to share a ride with a person heading to a destination that is out of the way of the passenger (in as far as typical routes are concerned).
Walker, J. (May 26, 2023) “Lyft: The End of Shared Rides,” Human Transit, https://humantransit.org/2023/05/lyft-the-end-of-shared-rides.html [Last accessed: 6/12/2023]
To quote from the article:
“I used this service once. On a departure from the airport, it paired my trip with one in a substantially different direction. The other trip was to a point further from the airport than my destination, and yet it served that trip first. I ended up with a travel time about twice what my direct travel time would have been, and much more than the app had estimated. I never used this option again. My impression was that they were overselling the product in contexts where it wasn’t appropriate, and they were offering the same discount to the person dropped off first — whose trip is exactly what it would have been if traveling alone — as to the person whose trip was being made much longer.”
We actually already have shared rides in the Philippines. This is in the form of UV Express (formerly and popularly referred to as FX after the Toyota vehicle model that became popular from the 1990s), which continue to be a popular mode of public transport. Shared rides evolved from a group of people negotiating with FX taxi drivers to take them to a common point or destination (not to their final destinations). At the common destination, the passengers will eventually part ways for their last mile trips. Here is the article on a taxi service that eventually became a shared service I wrote a while back:
That was before there were apps to facilitate the sharing. I think this also showed how people will find ways to overcome problems like a lack of public transportation for their commutes.
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Early risers and commuters
I was half surprised the other day when I went out to go to our office at 5:00 AM. I am no stranger to early morning or very late night travels including driving myself. I’ve done so under various circumstances before including going to the airport for an early flight or driving to a hospital due to an emergency. You don’t see many people waiting for rides at 11:00 PM or perhaps 3:00 AM. These are basically what people refer to as ‘unholy’ hours. People are asleep during these times. If not, they probably are working the so-called graveyard shift. The latter used to be for workers employed in facilities like factories that usually operate 24/7. Nowadays, these include business process outsourcing (BPO) workers who are active in part due to their employers being in countries in different time zones (e.g., US and Europe).
At one point before the pandemic, transport and traffic had become so bad that people had to leave their homes earlier than when they had. For example, instead of leaving at 7:00 AM, employees had to leave at 6:00 AM in order to reach their workplaces at 8:00 AM. Students have to leave at 5:30 AM to reach their schools at 7:00 AM. Now that we are still in a pandemic but returning to the ‘old normal’ it seems to have become worse than before.
At one point during the pandemic, a senior transport official stated that people will just have to wake up earlier if they want to get to their destinations on time. Whether this was serious or in a joking manners, to tell people to wake up early (or earlier) if they want to get a comfortable ride or just even to get a ride is insensitive. It only shows officials to be uncaring. But that probably is linked to their being elitist or privileged that they cannot even empathize with the regular commuters. With a new administration in place, we seem to have more of the same kinds of officials in our transport agencies but hopefully, the younger staff can convince their bosses to be otherwise and really work towards improving commutes.
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On getting started on bike commuting
Here is another article on bike commuting. It really is a challenge to get people into bike commuting even if their workplaces or schools are close to their homes. What more for people who have to travel longer distances between their homes and workplaces or schools?
Bassett, E. (December 1, 2022) “The No B.S. Guide to Getting Started Bike Commuting,” Medium, https://erikbassett.medium.com/the-no-b-s-guide-to-getting-started-bike-commuting-5dd0cbb87e5b [Last accessed:
To quote from the article:
“Assume you’re invisible until proven otherwise.
Like every city I’ve lived or ridden in, yours probably paints pictures on the ground and calls them “bicycle infrastructure.” Road designs encourage excess speed; vehicles aren’t meaningfully separated from cyclists and pedestrians; there are conflicting rights-of-way at intersections, driveways, and so forth.
And that is not right. It’s a sad commentary on urban “planning” in most places that anything but car use requires this degree of paranoia. It points to a profound dysfunction that few (with any serious influence) are willing or even interested to change…yet.
But unless or until it improves, the only viable response is to assume you don’t exist in the eyes of whoever’s driving nearby. “If I weren’t here, would they gun it to make a right turn on red?” Well, assume they will. “If I weren’t here, would they merge up there?” You guessed it: assume they will.
This is unquestionably the worst aspect of bike commuting, and if it’s too stressful in your situation, that’s perfectly fine. But in the spirit of a “no-B.S.” guide, I’d be remiss not to drive home a life-saving lesson that all these years of cycling have so deeply ingrained in me.”
The author also states the difference between bike commuting and sports biking including noting the differences in the objectives or goals for each.
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Commuting from/to Antipolo via the public transport terminal at Robinsons Antipolo
I was at the Robinsons Antipolo public transport terminal to take a P2P bus to Ortigas. I took a few photos before boarding the bus. The bus no longer terminates at Robinsons Galleria but instead goes to Greenhills. This is very convenient for people who need to go to Virra Mall or somewhere in its vicinity (e.g., Cardinal Santos Medical Center, LSGH, etc.).
Then there are the buses plying the Antipolo-Cubao route via Sumulong Highway-Marcos Highway-Aurora Boulevard. These are regular aircon buses (not P2P) operated by various companies including G-Liner, RRCG, Jayross, etc. Below are photos of Diamond Star buses loading passengers bound for Cubao.
The lines can be very long depending on the time in the morning but I guess the assurance of a seat makes it worthwhile to go to the terminal rather than wait for the bus along its route. Passengers loads are practically back to pre-pandemic levels and with some jeepneys back, that means competition for the buses.
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Free public transportation services?
We start August with an article share. Much has been said and written about public transportation being a basic right for people. And the experiences during this Covid-19 pandemic have shown us just how efficient and adequate public transportation can help make our lives better in terms of addressing our commuting or travel needs. Here is a very informative article that should make sense from the perspective of the general commuting public:
Konbie, N. (July 29, 2022) “The Case for Making Public Transit Free Everywhere,” Wired, https://www.wired.com/story/free-public-transit/?bxid=5bd6761b3f92a41245dde413&cndid=37243643&esrc=AUTO_OTHER&source=EDT_WIR_NEWSLETTER_0_DAILY_ZZ&utm_brand=wired&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_content=WIR_Daily_072922&utm_mailing=WIR_Daily_072922&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nl&utm_term=P7 [Last accessed: 8/1/2022]
To quote:
“Free fares might not get everyone out of cars, but will convert some journeys, which benefits everyone in terms of carbon reduction and improving local air quality—and even helps drivers by calming traffic. Free fares won’t pull low-income people out of poverty, but will keep money in their pockets and ensure everyone can travel when they need to. Ditching fares comes at a cost, but there are savings to be had by not investing in expensive ticketing systems and wider logistical and societal benefits…
Public transport should be considered a human right, alongside access to health and education.”
Of course, service quality is a major concern here in the Philippines but isn’t it everywhere else? The question of sustainability should be a rather complex one considering we haven’t truly understood and translated the benefits that can be obtained from providing high quality public transport services vs. being car-oriented. Congestion pricing, for example, could very well provide the funds to improve, upgrade and maintain desirable public transport services (i.e., desirable from the perspective of most commuters and not just the lower and middle income people who more regularly or likely to take public transport than other modes of transport).
What do you think?
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Quezon City’s bus services
One of the projects of the Quezon City (QC) government during the pandemic and which they continued to the present was transport-related. QC deployed buses to provide free transport for its residents.
Here are the routes (source: QC FB page):
Route 1 – Quezon City Hall to Cubao (and vice versa)
Route 2 – Litex / IBP Road to Quezon City Hall (and vice versa)
Route 3 – Welcome Rotonda to Aurora Blvd. / Katipunan Avenue (and vice versa)
Route 4 – General Luis to Quezon City Hall (and vice versa)
Route 5 – Mindanao Ave. cor. Quirino Highway to Quezon City Hall (and vice versa)
Route 6 – Quezon City Hall to Robinsons Magnolia (and vice versa)
Route 7 – Quezon City Hall to Ortigas Avenue Extension (and vice versa)
Route 8 – Quezon City Hall to Muñoz (and vice versa)
See their UPDATED Bus Route & Schedule:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=273192358328744&id=100069139452704
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=273192031662110&set=pcb.273192358328744
Here are some photos of the buses along the Elliptical Road. These are air-conditioned and have WiFi for the comfort and benefit of the commuters.
With the fresh mandate (second term) of the QC Mayor Joy Belmonte, it is expected that they will continue with this public service. I am not sure if it should be strictly for QC residents. Perhaps those who work or study in QC should also benefit from the service. These people may show proof in the form of valid IDs like school or employee IDs.
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Caught (up) in traffic 