Musings on rainy day commutes

d0ctrine

Sep 2

I sympathize with a lot of people whose activities were disrupted by the inclement weather the past days. The rains from the other night and today resulted in floods around Metro Manila and Rizal (where I live). The forecast of more rains during the past days made government suspend classes at all levels for both public and private schools. However, many and particularly students have already traveled to their schools as some announcements came late or not early enough for those who usually leave home early to avoid the usual traffic congestion around schools.

I myself used to leave our home early to go to school. As I took public transportation to the university, I had to leave before 6:00 AM (even earlier if it was raining) to be able to get a jeepney ride and have a comfortable trip (shorter travel time than when I leave later in the morning). I had one transfer at what used to be the K-Mart terminal. Both legs of the trip were via jeepneys. I recall silently cursing the guards at Ateneo for prioritizing what seemed to be an infinite number of cars entering and exiting that university via their Gates 2 and 3. At the time, Ateneo still operated the blue school buses and you can see few students on those buses. I observed already then that most of their students probably had their own vehicles to take them to school. Once past the gauntlet of Ateneo and Miriam (which was Maryknoll before), traffic was smoother. And to think that there was no C.P. Garcia yet and Katipunan at the UP Diliman and MWSS areas was not as wide as it is now. The old Katipunan section was basically a two lane road with UP on one side and MWSS on the other. What is now a center island with large acacia trees used to be the frontage of MWSS. UP's walls were lined with eateries and small stores catering to students and workers.

My commutes during the wet season can be quite difficult as you can't simply hang on to the jeepney (at the back) when it's pouring. And when the weather's particularly bad, there were flooding along my route, not to mention where I resided. I also remember wading in floodwaters along Katipunan (yes, there were floods along Katipunan before) because the road was impassable to vehicles and the only way to get home was to walk from UP to Aurora Boulevard. Our home in Cainta was often flooded during typhoons, and I also waded in floodwaters along portions of Felix/Imelda Avenue an in our village. The flood experiences probably deserve separate articles here and I will share some stories as soon as I can organize my thoughts and memories of these. Of course, I will relate these to transportation as there were lots I learned from these experiences. The frustration though is that it seems we have yet to do in order to address climate's and weather's impacts on transportation.