It did not surprise me at all when an Inquirer report quoted the traffic and navigation app Waze describing Metro Manila traffic the worst on earth.

Waze, the report said, asked its users to rate traffic in 167 metro areas in 32 countries from 1 to 10 in its first Global Driver Satisfaction Index (GDSI) survey. Metro Manila scored 0.4 in the survey, way below the minimum 1 for “miserable.”

GDSI is said to be based on six factors: traffic level by frequency and severity of traffic jams; road quality and infrastructure; driver safety based on accidents, road hazards and weather; driver services like access to gas stations and easy parking; socioeconomic, including access to cars and impact of gas prices; and “Wazeyness,” or the level of helpfulness and happiness within the Waze community.

But there are other things that make life miserable for road users, both motorists and pedestrians, in Metro Manila.

Lack of street signs

A major problem is the lack of street signs. When riding a Grab taxi, I always have to tell the driver how to find my place because it has no street signs. And these are not minor roads—San Andres and Singalong, supposedly alternate routes when traffic gets heavy on Quirino Avenue.

I am, in fact, impressed that Waze is able to provide the names of streets that lack any identifying marks.

Occasionally, new street signs are put up but they last just a few months, or even days. Either they get stolen—I do not know for what purpose—or the paint peels off after a couple of rainy days.

And how can Waze program into its app the streets that get closed to traffic overnight because people want to play basketball in the middle of the road, hold a wake, celebrate a birthday or set up a stage for a barangay fiesta program?

Or what about public roads that are now closed to other taxpayers at night because people who live along those streets seem to want to feel like they reside in gated communities? Before, these roads were closed at 10 p.m. but now they seem to be out of bounds as early as 8 p.m., leaving motorists with fewer alternate routes.

Little space

Double parking and illegal structures on sidewalks remain unresolved, leaving motorists and pedestrians very little space for safe navigation.

In Manila, barangay halls are being built on sidewalks, forcing pedestrians to walk on the street, risking life and limb.

Now vendors are also slowly but surely taking over Pedro Gil Street. They are not on the sidewalk. They have set up their contraptions on both sides of the already congested street.

Either Manila officials do not get that far out of city hall to see what is happening, or they just do not care. While fewer vendors are in the area in front of the University of the Philippines Padre Faura campus, there is a growing number of them on the other side of Taft Avenue and they are edging closer to Paco Market.

If Manila authorities allow the situation to continue, they may just find themselves faced with the problem on Taft Avenue in Pasay City that was exposed recently. In Pasay, it was reported that vendors closed off a portion of Taft and forced motorists to take other streets.

Vice Mayor and now senatorial candidate Isko Moreno was supposed to be Manila’s traffic czar. How come he never noticed this growing traffic obstruction on a major city street?

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