The wins and lessons in transport for 2025

By Ray Adrian Macalalag

The transport year in 2025, at least for Western Visayas, showed progress on infrastructure and safety planning, but also exposed deep policy and equity gaps heavily reliant on national government action that must be fixed in 2026. Here are some wins and lessons in 2025 for land transportation relevant to the region and the broader transportation sector.

Iloilo opened the year with a high‑profile infrastructure project. In January 2025, the Iloilo River North Bank Road, known as the Sunset Boulevard, was inaugurated and opened to traffic in January as a four‑lane, 4.9 km corridor meant to ease congestion and spur local development; within weeks, however, the new road recorded multiple crashes that prompted city authorities to step up monitoring and safety measures.

The public utility vehicle modernization confusion dominated national and local debate between March and May 2025. The Department of Transportation (DOTr) created a Special Committee in late March to review the Public Transport Modernization Program after mounting protests and calls for suspension. Political signals that the program might be paused or recalibrated produced confusion, stoppages, and financial exposure for drivers and cooperatives who had already invested in modern units.

The Western Visayas Regional Development Council (RDC) responded to rising crash rates with a region‑specific plan in May 2025. The Western Visayas Road Safety Action Plan (WVRSAP) 2026–2028 formulation was launched under the Ligtas na Kalsada for All framework in mid‑May, bringing together regional agencies, local governments, academia, and the private sector to pursue data‑driven interventions, people-centric mobility, vehicle standards, driver training, among many others, as a coordinated regional response to road fatalities. This homegrown initiative, being the first of its kind in the country, caught local and global attention, including the UN Special Envoy for Road Safety. The plan was approved by the RDC this December and will be out in the first quarter of 2026.

Late November 2025 saw regulators move to restrict light electric vehicles on major roads. The DOTr and other agencies announced that e‑bikes and e‑trikes would be banned from national highways beginning December, citing safety concerns and plans for impoundment of units found on high‑speed corridors; the policy raises immediate questions about last‑mile access and the need for affordable alternatives for low‑income commuters. It did not push through, but will be revisited in January.

In December 2025, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority urged malls to limit mall‑wide sales during peak periods to ease congestion. The agency argued that simultaneous retail events can trigger sudden spikes in vehicle volume that overwhelm corridors and worsen gridlock, reframing private commercial scheduling as a legitimate lever for traffic management and highlighting how non‑transport sectors shape mobility outcomes.

Also in December 2025, the UN launched the Decade of Sustainable Transport (2026–2035). The UN launch and its Implementation Plan set a global agenda for people‑centered, climate‑resilient mobility and provided a timely framework for local actors to align modernization, safety, and infrastructure investments.

These events are connected, not discrete. New roads like the Iloilo Sunset Boulevard create capacity but also new safety risks when vehicle mix, enforcement, and design are not aligned. Modernization that ended up with just the change of the vehicles and not the system, exacerbated by the lack of credible transitional finance and social protections, produces strikes and service gaps. Regional safety planning can reduce crashes only if it is resourced and taken as a development issue instead of a siloed transportation perspective. Bans on light electric vehicles and calls to curb mall sales are symptomatic responses to safety and congestion problems that require systemic solutions rather than blunt instruments.

This 2026, policymakers must stabilize signals on modernization, provide transparent transitional financing and refinancing for early adopters. The Western Visayas Road Safety Action Plan must not only remain on paper but must be implemented with each stakeholder doing their part. Inclusivity matters: invest in walkable streets, safe crossings, and frequent, affordable public transportation so low‑income commuters are not left behind by reforms. If these elements move together, the region can convert investments and lessons of 2025 into safer, more equitable mobility; if they remain disconnected, the region, and the country in general, risks repeating cycles of investment followed by disruption or missed outcomes.