President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has hit the brakes on the planned rehabilitation of EDSA, shelving a project that would have rolled out an “odd-even” traffic scheme and raised fears of a Metro Manila “carmaggedon.”
The suspension, he said, is to give agencies time to explore new technologies and better strategies for overhauling the capital’s busiest artery.
“We saw new technology that had not been used in planning the EDSA rehabilitation, so I instructed Transportation Secretary Vince Dizon and Secretary Manny Bonoan of the DPWH to tell them to pause the rehabilitation,” he said in Filipino during the launch of the Pamilya Pass 1+3 promo at the MRT Kamuning Station this morning.
The now-shelved plan was supposed to start with the Pasay to Shaw Boulevard stretch and would have implemented the odd-even number coding scheme on June 16 to manage the expected gridlock. The rehab would have spanned three years — a timeline now under review.
The President acknowledged the urgent need to repair EDSA but said the public cost — in time, traffic, and sacrifice — was too steep under the current proposal.
“There is a lot of sacrifice. Traffic will be too heavy, too tight, so let’s pause that for now,” he said.
The suspension also halts the dry run for the odd-even traffic scheme that had prompted calls for a revival of remote and hybrid work setups reminiscent of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
Marcos Jr. said the government needs about a month to reconsider its options, with a goal of cutting the rehabilitation period from three years to just six months to a year.
“In other words, we will find a better way that will not cause too much inconvenience,” he added.
