Fixing EDSA

'Infrastructure intended to mobilize the nation instead regularly paralyzes it and not just occasionally.

- STATIC MARVIN TORT

That is EDSA, which unfortunately tarnishes the legacy of Malabon-born Epifanio de los Santos y Cristobal. Don Panyong, as he was known, was a distinguished historian, journalist, lawyer, civil servant, member of the Malolos Congress, and governor of Nueva Ecija from 1902 to 1906.

During the American colonial period, he served as a district attorney in Nueva Ecija, and later as fiscal for Bulacan and Bataan.

In 1918, the colonial government appointed him assistant technical director of the Philippine Census, and in 1925, he became Director of the Philippine Library and Museum a position he held until his death in 1928.

In the 1930s, under the American-era Metropolitan Thoroughfare Plan, the colonial government conceived a bypass route to connect Manila's outskirts without passing through its urban core. It envisioned a circumferential road that would encircle the capital rather than dissect it.

But road construction was halted by World War II and resumed only in the late 1940s. By 1949, what was then called Highway 54 fully opened, running from the cities of Caloocan to Pasay. In 1959, through a resolution by the Philippine Historical Committee, Highway 54 became Epifanio de los Santos Avenue now commonly known as EDSA.

Today, EDSA is over 75 years old. Though it remains a vital transportation artery, it has become a severely congested route that induces daily "heart attacks" on the metropolis. Decades of temporary fixes - flyovers, number-coding schemes, and assorted traffic experiments - have turned it into a chaotic combination of concrete, steel, and confusion.

Earlier this year, the government announced plans to rehabilitate EDSA at an initial cost of P8.7 billion. The scope includes concrete replacement, drainage, and sidewalk improvements, and rehabilitation of the Guadalupe Bridge crossing the Pasig River.

The initial phase was set to cover southbound lanes from Guadalupe in Makati to Pasay City.