‘CHOKING PAINS’: Iloilo City identifies 38 traffic chokepoints, studies options

By Joseph Bernard A. Marzan and Rjay Zuriaga Castor

The Iloilo City government on Tuesday, November 11, said that it is working on re-routing solutions to ease the city’s rising problems, after its traffic consultant was able to identify 38 traffic chokepoints across the city.

Raymund Jarobilla, traffic consultant for the City Planning and Development Office, who was engaged since August, said that the 38 chokepoints were an increase from the 22 also previously logged by the city government.

The chokepoints were identified through an ongoing traffic survey led by Jarobilla simultaneously throughout eight locations across the city.

A choke point “can be an intersection, or a section of a busy road, or a block bounded by several roads”, or “usually a segment of the busiest streets in the urban areas of the city –

where the most number of vehicles pass each day – and where travel delays are longest.”

These definitions were taken from the Traffic Management Manual, based on the study commissioned by the Japan International Cooperation Agency on the formulation of Small Scale Traffic Improvement Measures for Metro Manila.

Simply put, “choke points” refer to the major intersections of the city’s streets, or sections of major roads within the city that are the “busiest” or usually having a high density of vehicles.

Jaro district logged the most number of chokepoints with 13, including:

– Quintin Salas/R4;

– Tagbak-Metropolis;

– CityMall-Tagbak;

– Baldoza/Coastal;

– Tacas/C1 Road;

– Sambag;

– Cuartero/El 98;

– Jalandoni/E.Lopez;

– Balabago/Coastal Road;

– West Visayas State University Medical Center (Don Benito Hospital);

– Jaro Plaza;

– Robinsons Jaro; and

– Ceres Terminal.

Meanwhile, four chokepoints were identified in the neighboring La Paz district, including Granja/Baldoza, Ticud Coastal, Hechanova/Rizal, and Nabitasan/Prime Estates.

Another neighboring district to Jaro, Mandurriao, logged five chokepoints, including Oñate/R.Mapa, Taft North/El 98, B.S. Aquino/San Rafael, Tabucan/R.Mapa, and Western Visayas Medical Center (Western Hospital).

City Proper had the second-most chokepoints in the city for a single district with nine, including:
– Muelle Loney/Quirino Bridge;

– Gen. Luna/Mabini;

– Quezon/Delgado;

– Ledesma/Mabini;

– Jalandoni/Delgado;

– Arroyo area;

– Gen. Luna/Infante Signal;

– Central Market; and

– Terminal Market (“Super”).

Four chokepoints were also identified in Molo district, including Molo Signal, Locsin/San Jose Street, Gen. Luna/Infante, and Infante/Timawa.

Arevalo district had the least number of chokepoints with three, which include the Villa Arevalo Plaza, C1/Jocson Junction, and Mohon Terminal.

Jarobilla said that the increase of chokepoints were because of additional improvements, such as the installation of traffic signals, which he admitted needed further adjustments for optimization and better vehicular traffic flow.

Factors cited by Jarobilla include vehicle volume, accessibility of businesses to the roads, common pedestrian crossing points, and circulation of vehicles, among others.

He added further that there is still constant updating of the chokepoints, citing changes in traffic signals due to other circumstances such as road closures.

“These chokepoints are usually the obvious [areas] where the roads are congested. The additional [chokepoints] are those areas which require adjustments for improvement,” Jarobillo told the media in a briefing.

He said that they have already crafted new traffic schemes in the Tagbak, Molo, Arroyo, Quintin Salas, and Tabucan areas, and will be engaging with stakeholders to inform them of changes to road accessibility.

An ordinance is expected to be crafted, and from there the city government will craft plans, which will include an enforcement and information campaign.

“Part of our stakeholder engagement is to gather feedback from the public, and then an ordinance will follow, and we will craft plans, which will then go through a bit of engineering, to determine whether we need to procure [new] signs, paint on the roads, [and] placing barriers,” he explained.

Some chokepoints will also be designated as “traffic discipline zones”, where enforcement will be tightened and erring motorists will be immediately informed by enforcers of their violations and reoriented with traffic laws and regulations.

He emphasized that public cooperation with the city’s traffic plans was key to improving flow.

“It’s not just us in the government who can give improvement, we also need the cooperation of the public to smooth the flow of traffic in the [city’s] roads,” he said.

“Even with all of the roads we improve, if the public isn’t following the [traffic] schemes we make, it becomes more difficult [to implement]. […] One factor in our traffic [management] is the public’s behavior,” he added.

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

Jarobilla added that part of improving the city’s transportation includes improving the public transport system and reducing the number of private vehicles on the roads.

While the Metro Iloilo-Guimaras Economic Development Council (MIGEDC) is spearheading a study under the Swedish government’s Swedfund, he said that the city government is also looking at local initiatives to reduce vehicle volume on the roads.

He said that they are already engaging with the Department of Transportation and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board on this matter, but have yet to crystallize a plan.

This involves travel demand management, active mobility, and policy and planning integration.

“Policy and planning integration is a big factor to our mobility goals. Because when there is a big [infrastructure] development, we have a traffic impact assessment [or] study, […] which is when you build here as a big developer, what would be your impact on the traffic? How do we address that? That is a big factor, so that development would be in line with our mobility goals, with the vision to improve the quality of life,” he said.