The MRT Extension Project

The construction of the MRT Extension along the stretch of Epifanio delos Santos Avenue (EDSA) from North Edsa to Monumento has added at least twenty minutes to my daily commute to work.

Looking at the pictures I took this morning, the contractor, DMCI-First Balfour, has not built yet any of the structures that would form the (at least) five additional stations, and yet motorists have now been experiencing traffic slowdown at the expected chokepoints where the stations will be erected, notably that part in Balintawak fronting the public market where day in and day out you can see a number of policemen rounding up color-coding violators (don't they have anything better to do and know that they contribute much to the friggin' slow traffic especially during rush hours just by being there?).

The Munoz-Edsa intersection is also beginning to be a bottleneck when vehicle volume starts to increase because of the friggin' uneducated, selfish bus and jeepney drivers who have this inclination of transforming a corner of a high or major road into a parking lot. No reason to wonder why this country's development is so slow -- just observe the drivers of public utility vehicles: our roads are the national stages of our culture of 'oneupmanship' (makaisa lang) and corruption.

The project began in the last quarter last year and it is scheduled to be completed in May 2010 (just in time for the eventual exit of Macapagal-Arroyo, or so we hope).

I expect that my daily trip to my place of work would become a horrible experience in the coming months.