Unlocking Sustainable Mobility in Metro Manila

TRAFFIC. Motorists endure the morning rush hour traffic along EDSA in Quezon City on June 14, 2023 | Jire Carreon / Rappler

In an article by East Asia Forum, Jan Carlo Punongbayan asserts that rebalancing mobility by modernizing and integrating bus rapid transit, rail and cycling under coherent oversight can reduce emissions, cut travel times and create more liveable communities.

Metro Manila has long been notorious for its traffic jams. In 2023, the Philippine capital earned the unenviable distinction of having the world’s longest average travel time — 25.5 minutes just to cover 10 kilometres. The economic cost of this congestion is staggering, estimated at 3.5 billion pesos (US$60 million) a day, potentially rising to 5.4 billion pesos (US$92 million) by 2035 if current trends continue.

At the heart of the problem is a decades-old, deeply entrenched car-centric paradigm in urban planning. Infrastructure investments have favoured road widening and elevated expressways, reinforcing car ownership and usage. Public transport systems — including rail, buses and active mobility infrastructure — have remained fragmented and underdeveloped. Unreliable or unsafe mass transit drives commuters towards car ownership, worsening traffic, pollution and inequality.

This preference for private vehicles did not emerge in a vacuum. Metro Manila’s car-centric design mirrors broader regional trends shaped in part by development partners. Over many years, multilateral agencies like the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Asian Development Bank have financed road networks and infrastructure such as bypasses and underpasses. At the same time, Metro Manila became a key market for Japanese carmakers like Toyota and Mitsubishi. This geoeconomic entanglement has locked in the dominance of automobiles in urban design.