Account of a Weekend Commuter from Bicol

A Commuter's Story (Jay from Bicol)

Jay works in BGC and lives in Makati.  Like many young professionals who landed jobs in Metro Manila he regularly goes home to Bicol  province on Friday nights and returns to office very early Monday morning.  This weekend trips allow him to have a badly needed family time and allow him to pitch-in financially to his larger family back home. 

He worries that a mandatory provincial bus pick-up/stop at Santa Rosa Laguna (by June 2019) will substantially cut into his family time and reduce his sleep time on the way back to office on Mondays.  The P600 fare he currently pays from Bicol to Ayala Station in Makati can double if he is forced to take an FX or taxi from St Rosa to Makati.  City buses from St Rosa to Makati are not viable options for him as they do not take luggage.  Even if he can take city buses, these will certainly more cost for him than his current route which takes him straight to Makati, not to mention the possibility of horrendously long wait time at St Rosa if that new terminal will be overwhelmed by passengers on Monday mornings.

His suggestion would be for the authorities to consider allowing provincial-buses to still go direct (point-to-point) to a few central terminals inside Metro Manila (e.g. Makati and Cubao).  This should pose no problem for traffic in EDSA so long as the following conditions are met (i) the terminals allow quick entry and exit of buses (nose-in, nose-out) and (ii) no buses are allowed to stop outside on the road.  From these terminals affordable and multi modal connections (PUV, tricycles, MRT, Rail) are available.

From his routine trips he noticed that most of his fellow passengers alight in Makati or Cubao anyway; so forcing them to alight in Santa Rosa would cause many of these passengers to continue their trips on smaller vehicles to Makati/ Cubao.  So this will not help decongest EDSA.