Vehicles with solo riders to be banned on some segments of EDSA during rush hours

Bad news for people driving alone on EDSA during rush hours.

The Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) announced yesterday that the Metro Manila Council (MMC) has agreed to ban single-occupant vehicles from traversing some segments of EDSA, the city’s main thoroughfare, during peak hours.

However, the MMDA has not divulged when the scheme will be implemented. Originally it should be in force on Aug. 15, but MMDA’s general manager Jojo Garcia said they need to study it first.

He told Businessworld: “We are not in a hurry to implement the policy as we want to make sure everything is in order.”

In an interview with DZMM, Garcia also said they still haven’t decided what constitutes as rush hours, but said that time blocks from the morning and afternoon will be included.

The MMDA chief promised that they will give a clearer picture of the guidelines by Friday.

He told DZMM: “Our roads are very packed. The [car] volume is really huge. We really have to divide the road into segments [for different cars].”

“[People] carpooling is really our target,” said Garcia. He also shared that 70 percent of vehicles have only one occupant, the driver.

According to Rappler, it was last year that the MMC first proposed to ban solo occupancy cars from using the high occupancy vehicle lane, which is the lane nearest to the center island.