[sustran] The moon is at Ortigas Avenue

[aables at adb.org]

I live in the outskirts of Metro Manila and have to ply Ortigas Avenue to 
and from ADB.  Early this year, Ortigas Avenue-a national road-was newly 
paved with asphalt up to Ortigas Avenue Extension, just in time for the 
national and local elections in May.  Now it's rainy season and the road 
has turned into an obstacle course for both motorists and pedestrians.  My 
15-20-minute ride to work has become a 1 1/2hour-long torture (of course 
this could extend to 2 hours if I was really lucky). The 8-10km stretch is 
now filled with craters of every size and shape that have turned into 
pools of murky water complete with black sandy asphalt on the side. 
Construction workers have started shaving off the asphalt only to replace 
it again with substandard asphalt.  And so it goes.  We can only hope that 
this time, they will truly rehabilitate it and use concrete instead of 
asphalt and that the next road repair will not be needed for years to 
come... or until the next national elections, which is in the next 6 
years.  Road rehabilitation has been one of the primary milking cows of 
politicians and will remain that way, unless the laws against graft and 
corruption are implemented and its violators are punished to the fullest.
_______________________________________
Aurora Fe (Au) A. Ables
Transport Researcher
Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia)
Asian Development Bank
Phone  ++632 632 4444 local 70820
Fax       ++632 636 2381
Email    aables at adb.org
Website http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia
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