Metro Manila’s traffic just keeps getting worse, ranking 14th among the worst in the world in the 2025 TomTom Traffic Index.

Newly-installed Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) General Manager Nicolas Torre’s suggestion to address this? Open the EDSA busway to other high-occupancy vehicles.

“One of the things we are thinking of doing — but this is not yet approved — is putting on the drawing table the idea of allowing high-occupancy vehicles with 10 or more people to use the busway,” Torre said in an interview on One News.

According to him, this could encourage Filipinos to carpool and ease congestion.

And this isn’t the first time the idea has surfaced.

MMDA chairman Don Artes once floated a similar plan: turn the busway into a high-occupancy vehicle lane for cars with three to four passengers.

Artes’ solution to enforcement? AI-powered cameras to count passengers. Tinted windows? Roll them down for visibility.

The Department of Transportation (DOTr), however, is not buying Torre’s suggestion.

“The busway was designed primarily to move more people — not more cars — by providing fast and uninterrupted service to buses carrying up to 300,000 passengers daily,” the DOTr said in a statement on Thursday, January 29.

“Any move to open this lane to private vehicles, even under the guise of carpooling, will inevitably slow down bus operations and defeat the very purpose for which the busway was created,” DOTr Secretary Banoy Lopez said.

While the DOTr appreciates Torre’s suggestion, it said the President’s direction is that “government transport policy must be commuter-focused and pro-mass transit, not car-centric.”

“Kaisa namin ang mga commuters sa pagpapatotoo na mabisang programa ang EDSA Busway para sa mas nakararami. Sapat na dahilan ito para manatiling eksklusibo ang EDSA Busway para lamang sa mga bus at mga komyuter,” Lopez said.

(We stand with commuters in affirming that the EDSA Busway is an effective program that benefits the greater majority. This is reason enough for the EDSA Busway to remain exclusive to buses and commuters.)

This is not the first time for the MMDA and DOTr to be divided on certain policies. Almost a year ago, the MMDA and Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla suggested scrapping the EDSA bus carousel, but it was also rejected by the DOTr.

Same agencies. Same highway. Same disagreement.

So, while Metro Manila’s traffic keeps getting worse, its transport agencies seem stuck in their own jam — arguing over lanes, policies, and priorities — driving in different directions.

– Rappler.com