Philippines

Acting Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chairperson Romando Artes has, since March, been stating that “only 1,586 cyclists” traverse the major thoroughfare EDSA on a daily basis.

He has used this figure to justify the MMDA’s opposition to proposals to widen EDSA bike lanes, and on Wednesday, April 24, to explain why the agency is considering proposals to altogether remove or reduce the size of those bike lanes.

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But another major bike count study, conducted by the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC), yielded a much higher count of EDSA cyclists: over 7,000.

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Rappler, in a call with MMDA Traffic Engineering Center head Neomie Recio on Thursday, April 25, found that the 1,586 number was obtained by MMDA by counting cyclists from just one spot of EDSA, for one day, on July 28, 2023.

According to Recio, they did this count from 6 am to 8 pm in just one spot of EDSA, somewhere between Ortigas Avenue and Annapolis. They counted every hour during that time period, both on the north-bound and south-bound sides.

The MMDA did two other counts in that same spot on two other dates last year. During a whole-day count on July 26, they counted 1,229 cyclists. On another count on July 27, they counted 1,225 cyclists.

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On the dates MMDA did its bike count, Storm Signal Number 1 was declared over Metro Manila due to Typhoon Egay (Doksuri). Could this account for the much lower bike count? Why did MMDA conduct a bike count during a storm?