Traffic in Malolos City is Becoming a Nightmare

(Photo: for illustration only)

Christmas is just around the corner. In this month alone, Puregold Jr and Robinsons Place Malolos have opened their doors for your early Christmas shopping.

Yes you've read that right. A second Puregold and a second Robinsons are the newest outlet malls/supermarkets in the city and they're now open for business. BUT if you're thinking of driving to these places, you'll have a lot of traffic to deal with.

Let's take Robinsons Place Malolos as an example. Being the biggest mall in the area, it is expected to draw tens of hundreds if not thousands of people every day especially during weekends. On it's opening day, With all shoppers coming in from different places and neighboring towns, it did not take long for the traffic to become a real issue. 

At least a dozen officers (security guards and traffic enforcers) tried their best to help keep shoppers and motorists moving but their efforts proved almost futile. As expected, driving on the roads leading to the malls is a nighmare. You may find some options by taking detours to avoid heavily tangled traffic but this is not only inconvenient but also increases your commute time and that is very upsetting.

Besides the unruly traffic, i noticed that no safe U-Turn slots were installed at both ends of the baricade fronting the mall. Oddly, there were no traffic lights or traffic officers stationed to assist motorists making a U-turn on a national highway. On the part of pedestrians and shoppers taking the public transport, a footbridge should have been placed to allow them safe crossing of the deadly Mc Arthur Highway. The next thing that i noticed is- the way going to Malolos Club Royale Resort was not spared by the newly installed road-fence. The ingress or passageway to this resort/hotel was blocked... so, in order to go there or depart from it, you have to make a suicidal U-turn on either ends of the roadblock.

I hope that with these recent developments and economic progress of Malolos, the local Police’s Traffic management office together with the City Planning and Development Office and in cahoots with the management of the malls, would do something fast to address these traffic issues. Note that most of the Malls and Supermarkets in the city are erected parallel to the National Highway so they must design a clever scheme or scheme a clever design so as not to Cause so much traffic on the roads leading to these malls/supermarkets. 

I further hope that the city government and the malls' administration will get the situation figured out so the motorists can return to using the National Highway conveniently and get to their homes faster. 

Truly, Malolos is progressing and developing into a highly urbanized city. We should all have a fair share of not only the sound benefits therefrom but also of the adverse effects of getting it industrialised. Make Malolos a great city but not at the expense of the motorists and road safety.

Happy Holidays!