By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
Here we go again. The city is now facing proposals to build a parking building at the Ganza or Jadewell area. Any of these if adopted will make the central business district (CBD) more congested and the traffic would be impossible. It will also make Arch. Daniel Burnham turn in his grave. The beautiful design he penned would be lost. Why can’t we succeed in making what we inherited even more beautiful instead of destroying them or making them ugly?
More important, however, is that entertaining such proposals means that we have not junked the idea of exerting effort and spending much to further encourage the use of vehicles instead of making the local populace healthier by urging them to walk around, at least, when they are in the CBD.
As one visiting British professor at UP Baguio from Hongkong University said, such kind of thinking (pedestrianization) would lead us to come up with solutions like covered walkways so that anybody can go around the center of town by walking in comfort and safely. Allegedly, this is how it is in Hongkong. Not only will traffic become bearable, it will also reduce our collective carbon footprint.
The making of comfortable and safe walkways was started by Makati City when I was packing my bags to leave the metro,. This paper was already one year old then in 1997 and I realized that I had to come up to have a direct hand on how it was being run or completely close it down. I opted the former for investment-wise the die was cast, so to speak.
Makati City’s initial effort were walkways from building to building with glass walls and were airconditioned. It was expanded at the cost of about half a billion pesos from private stakeholders and now its overall length is 11 kilometers. One can walk from the Metrorail station along EDSA all the way to the Makati Medical Center passing through the commercial centers at the Greenbelt Area.
An underpass for pedestrians was also built across Ayala Ave. that was sparkling like a five-star hotel with escalators and mirrors and high quality ads framed on its walls. The whole stretch from floors to walls were in shiny tiles.
On the other hand, the underpass that connects the yard of Quezon City Hall to the park across, the Quezon Memorial circle, is so ordinary as any other government structure—drab and ill maintained. Not even an iota of classy sparkle around it. What a waste. It even has elevators for seniors.
How about our pedestrian facilities in Baguio to allow people to cross Magsaysay Ave.? Well, we have the overpasses that are not in anyway beautiful. They are so tight during rush hours and are good operating venues for pickpockets and, late at night, are the habitues of ladies of the night who have to bite the bullet each time in order to survive.
By pedestrianizing the CBD, parking areas of public utility vehicles can be relocated to outlying areas which will result in the decongestion of the city’s nerve center. It will be more wholesome and more touristy.
Parking buildings could also be located at the peripheries. One in Camp Allen as conceived during Mayor Domogna’s time will take care of the needs of many who are going to the public market and nearby areas and also those having some business at City Hall.
Another parking building at the Baguio Convention Center as envisioned by this city administration can prove convenient as long as there is a decent walkway going there from the Burnham Park area and Session Road.
And as warned by that professor from Hongkong and others from UP Baguio, building a parking building around Burnham Park would be ill advised as it is an acquifer and, as I recall, somebody even said that there is a fault line there. If so building a parking building there would be a crime, a mass murder waiting to happen.
The basic point is that there should be a paradigm shift. Instead of further supporting the use of vehicles, we should train our sights to pedestrianizing the center of town.
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