The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) will open the Edsa-McKinley service road in Makati City to two-way vehicular traffic to address bottleneck of vehicles in the country’s financial district.
Beginning Saturday, private vehicles coming from McKinley would be allowed to turn right to get to Edsa going northbound while private vehicles on Edsa-northbound going to BGC will also be allowed to use the McKinley access road.
At present, the Edsa-McKinley Access Road is only utilized by PUJs as loading bay. Both public utility jeepneys (PUJs) bound for Makati Business District in Ayala and Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City are allowed to load in the area and private vehicles to use the other lane to bypass the Edsa-McKinley intersection.
Under the new re-routing plan, MMDA enforcers will only allow three PUJs at a time at the loading bay on the side of Shell gas station to pick up passengers.
All PUJs will unload passengers at the BGC bus terminal where drivers will wait for their turn to queue at the loading bay. Around 120 PUJs operating in the area will be affected by the new re-routing scheme, the MMDA said.
The MMDA-Traffic Engineering Center (TEC) said it has requested the management of both the Ayala and BGC business districts to allow their traffic personnel undergo training and to be deputized by the agency to maintain the flow of traffic in the area.
MMDA-TEC personnel have already put markings and directional signs on the access road in preparation for the test run on Saturday.
MMDA general manager Tim Orbos has expressed gratitude to the Ayala group, which owns the private access road, for their cooperation and support in solving the traffic problem in the area.
“I am also thankful to the jeepney operators and drivers who readily agreed to this scheme,” said Orbos, expressing optimism that the re-routing scheme will address the heavy traffic build-up on the Edsa-Mckinley intersection during rush hours. (Anna Liza Villas-Alavaren)