Despite the commitment of the new administration of Baguio to take car of traffic woes, any short term measure can only go so far. Such will be short term as political terms of office last only for three years and most politicians are only thinking with that kind of short time horizon.
Some measures (more traffic enforcers, less illegally parked vehicles, etc.) will mean some incremental effects or improvements.But these will be easily overtaken by the continuous increase in the number of vehicles on the road.
The only way to have less cars plying the streets is to have an efficient mass transport system. This will encourage people to leave their cars at home or from buying one or additional units for expanding families.
A mass transport system in Baguio? So far, nothing in the immediate future. There was that much ballyhooed feasibility study on a planned train system from the city to La Trinidad. It was found out that it would be feasible. But it is still in the drawing board and translating this into rails and running trains might take eternity—which is what people feel when stuck in traffic. Eternity.
Is that the only thing going on in our leaders’ brains? Apparently. The idea of having a cable car system even if just for the La Trinidad to Baguio City line was considered out of the question due to the high cost of putting it up. But it would be the fastest, most efficient, pollution-free and a sure magnet for tourists whose numbers would increase exponentially, as found out in La Paz, Bolivia whose population is about double that of La Trinidad and Baguio City combined.
The cable car system of that Latin American country is the biggest in the whole world and for five years was trouble free and reliable. It relieved the people from a lot of traffic generated stress. It was constructed in 2014.
While a cable car system might be generally more expemsive to put up than a train system, it is a lot easier to construct at a much shorter time.
But such would require some thinking out of the box and a lot of gung ho attitude which is very rare in our midst. If it were not, we would not be a third world country.
In sum, traffic-wise, we are stuck where we are.**