Bicutan Bottleneck

The construction of SLEX is almost finished. Driving between Manila and Batangas at least twice a week, I would say that the traffic impact of the SLEX construction was not that bad.

Contrast that with the ongoing construction to extend the skyway from Bicutan to Alabang -- this has really snarled up traffic to a slow crawl between Alabang and Bicutan.

The bottleneck is located at the on-ramp/off ramp of the Skyway at Bicutan. I am not sure who is responsible for addressing the traffic situation in the area, but they are doing a very bad job. In their defense I can expect them to say that they have introduced a counterflow arrangem,ent at certain times of the day. I say it is not enough. The traffic has remained very bad and increased travel time considerably.

I am sure they can do more. Just three immediate observations:

• They should immediately finish constructing the Bicutan structure to allow removal of the road sbarrier to widen the bottleneck.
• They are now strictly enforcing the yellow lane at the Bicutan exit (Southbound) -- they should instead relax this and allow a freer flow of traffic.
• I wonder why they put road barriers immediatly after the Bicutan exit going South. This only lengthens the bottleneck instead of allowing it to immediatly open up.

The way they are doing it, it looks like they are interested only in the project -- to hell with the motorists. Which gets me curious about the construction contract there; hope I can have time to look into it.