Manila’s traffic mess is about to get even worse as Christmas nears
- Gridlock is a regular feature of life in a city whose infrastructure has not kept pace with incomes
- The Philippine capital is set to top Waze’s 2019 ranking of the world’s worst cities to drive in, beating out the likes of Bogota and Jakarta
Travel times have gotten longer in Asia’s most congested metropolitan area, and they’re expected to get even worse in the run-up to the Christmas holiday, according to Waze Inc.
It took about 4.9 minutes to drive one kilometre in Metro Manila in September, longer than the roughly 3.8 minutes it took in April, data from the Google-owned traffic navigation app shows.
Soul-crushing traffic is a regular feature of life in a city whose infrastructure has not kept pace with incomes. It’s now a constraint on the economy, as ageing public transport struggles to accommodate a growing population, fuelling the take-up of private cars.
It will only worsen in the remaining months of the year, Rodriguez said, especially over the All Souls’ Day long weekend when Filipinos typically go out of town, and before Christmas thanks to more frequent trips to restaurants, bars and shopping malls.