Transportation

When I lived in the Philippines, I lived close to my then elementary school, high school, and college. Up until my junior year in high school, my parents would drive me to school. In my senior year, they would drive me to a walkway that allowed me to cross the street to my school. We had to leave pretty early due to the traffic that piles up when entering the school grounds. In elementary school, they would pick me up after school. In high school, I would walk home. In college, I would take the numerous other forms of public transportation like the tricycles and jeepneys. It was also in high school and college when I started using public transportation more often to get to places I needed to be. I relied less and less on my parents taking me in the car. I also started to walk more, especially to places nearby like McDonald's or the U.P. Town Center. If I could avoid using public transportation (and had the time to talk), I would walk. I had the mindset that me walking was one less person using a tricycle or riding a jeepney, I was able to get some exercises, and I saved money (really it was only a few pesos, but every peso counts). However, these modes of public transportation haven't been and aren't the cleanest. Pair that with the extremely terrible traffic and the narrow streets, walking still exposed me to the exhaust, smoke, and heat that came from the vehicles and surroundings. Seeing the many people, adults and children alike, also near the streets means they are also exposed to the air pollution and the poor urban conditions. To this day, there have not been many significant improvements to existing alternatives (e.g. the railway transits, bus/jeepney/tricycle regulations) to help address chemical exposure in the air. Traffic is still horrible. Public transportation is still inefficient. Poor urban conditions are still the norm. It's honestly hard to hope that things will get better.

Comments

  1. Emebet AkliluSeptember 11, 2018 at 10:04 PM

    Chris,

    While my experience differed your story of home really resonates with me. My family is from Ethiopia and my last few experiences there have reinforced the ideas you just mentioned. "Public transportation is still inefficient, and poor urban conditions are still the norm". It is really sad to say that these conditions have been so widely accepted especially when these countries do not feel like the pollution is responsible for the other large public health concerns. I think the lack of infrastructure in these countries is one of the main reasons why these issues persist. Hopefully sometime soon we will see some changes. Thanks for sharing!

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  2. UnknownNovember 19, 2018 at 5:16 PM

    Hi Chris, this seems very similar to El Salvador, which is where my family is from. When I went a few years ago, we had to take the buses everywhere since my aunt and uncle lived in a very poor urban neighborhood and did not have the funds for a car. I agree, every peso counts in our countries! When we walked placed I was definitely exposed to all the air pollution and since I do not walk to places here in the US, I definitely felt the difference. For example, my asthma was awful the entire trip. This was mainly because everywhere we walked we were surrounded by all the smoke from the cars (they don't get smog checked regularly). It's definitely hard to have hope for a change when we see or have lived in those kinds of situations but I definitely hope it gets better with time.

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