Post-Christmas Traffic

After enjoying near-zero traffic for the week between Christmas and the New Year, it is back with a vengeance.

Today was the start of my wife’s training in her company and she had to be at the training center by 8:30 am today. And in order to provide enough buffers, we left the house at 7:00 in the morning.

As we were walking to the jeepney stop, we could see the gridlock traffic two streets away.

Knowing that she may be late, we increased the pace of our stride and got to the stop a good ten minutes earlier than normal.

Now to many, ten minutes may not seem much. But during rush hour, being late as little as two minutes can mean adding an extra hour to one’s travel time.

The Wait

In this case, we had hoped that two and a half hours was good enough to get her to the training center on time.

We even waited with the plan of grabbing the first ride that comes, whether it is an FX or cab, we hop on the first one that passes our way

Yet with all our plans and expectations, we waited for two whole hours before a free cab finally stopped a few meters from our spot.

The Ride

Traffic was heavy throughout our entire rout.

Every road had long lines of cars, jeeps, and the occasional truck in long, disorderly lines. Intersections, ramps, and underpasses, none them were spared.

At the end of our commute, we added another hour to our waiting time, bringing our total travel time to three hours.

The Drop Off

When we finally got down at Paseo de Roxas, then we gave the cab driver a total of P140, including the P40 tip.

It may sound much, but this guy picked us up and took us to our destination without any complaints, so his being professional about it deserved a bonus in our minds.

My wife was still fuming as she was very late already.

She only calmed down when she got a call that the trainer was also running late, and would need another half hour to arrive.

So after letting out a deep sigh, we headed off to the nearest fast food restaurant to grab a couple of breakfasts composed of hotdogs, eggs, and fried rice.

After the meal, she was back to normal and we went our separate ways; she, to the training center and me, to my office.

Traffic has been extremely heavy since the start of the second week. It looks like people have already come back from their extended vacations and brought their cars with them as they go back to their daily routines.

Traffic is expected to get lighter when school is out this summer. But being another three months away, we don’t really have a choice but to try and grin and bear it.