City without traffic lights

By Rolo B. Cena
Hushed Poppies
Dumaguete Star Informer
06 November 2011

Imagine a city without traffic lights, and here’s the plan: It will have two sets of roads. The roads in one set will be parallel to each other and perpendicular to the roads in the other set. All roads will be one way. The direction of traffic on each road will be opposite to that on the adjacent roads. There will be a simple flyover at each intersection.

To assure motorists of no intrusions from the sides, all roads will be fenced. Each block will have an internal ring road that will be connected to each of the four roads forming the block and to the internal roads in the block. Stopping and parking of vehicles on main roads will be prohibited; it will be permitted only inside a block. Pedestrian, cyclists and bicyclists will have their own independent network on similar lines that will be interwoven with this network and flyover wherever they cross each other.

And this how I wished Dumaguete would have been.

It was in December of 1991 when I first stepped in the soils of Dumaguete to fulfill the promise: to have our wedding at St. Augustine Cathedral in Bacong. I fell in love with the place: pristine environment, laidback culture, unassuming corporate behavior, and organized traffic.

In May 2003, my wife and I finally decided to leave Imperial Manila and settle here; worked for about four years and most recently, re-settled in Saudi Arabia in the last three years.

Vertigo may have attacked my senses but truly though, in the first day of my homecoming, I was amazed to see how the traffic converged from one road to the other. For instance, the Daro Highway from the airport was moderate to heavy between five and six o’clock in the evening. The inner roads, Perdices, Real and Boulevard in particular were frantically heavy.

Farther south, the intersection where Robinson’s, the caterer of the first major commercialism in the “City of Gentle People” nestles was an instant (and will be a) perpetual irritant. As the flow converges from the south, from the area of Hypermart and Talay, and from two exits points from the City, no motorist could ever take the dilemma of the moment.

It was a classic taste of commercialism, the consequential reaction of embracing development more than naïveté already at hand. But of course, for the City or the province to farther enhance its growth and development, it has to buy-in commercialism being sold out in the market in the guise of development.

And development always has its idiocy and mayhem. The Metropolitan Manila is a classic example; commercialism included.

Lately, it took us more than thirty minutes to reach the city from Bacong. Before Dumaguete adapted commercialistic development, it would only take us ten to fifteen minutes to ply the same route.

As I and other motorists trudge the same paths people in the city and the province travel, the ire brought about by under-studied traffic condition is getting into one’s nerves. Urgently, city planners or officials should wander around and check for themselves the gravity of the situation.

But this is progress. Arguably though, it’s taking its toll in different tone. Moving north of growth or development is not an option; moving south of it, for some peculiar and uncontrollable reason or circumstance, is.

Under the norms or precepts of growth or development, a city without traffic lights becomes a far lesser idea. At the crossroads, it would be better if the city will venture into erecting traffic lights instead of installing traffic officers who hide in the middle of the day or under heavy rains. It’s in fact, a traffic-causing action.

What a spectacle to wander around and ply the city streets sans the hassles of congestions, both of humans and vehicles!

Onward, Dumaguete!