If you're traveling along Araneta Ave going towards N. Domingo, the street becomes a five-lane wide street by the time you reach the Aurora Ave. traffic light. The two leftmost lanes are supposed to be for cars taking a left turn to Aurora. The next two lanes will be for those going ahead to N. Domingo. The last lane is for the right-turners, those going to Sta. Mesa and beyond.
That is a very logical and wise setup, as Aurora Ave is just 3-lane wide at its mouth, Araneta will become also a 3-lane street upon crossing Aurora, and we want to free up the right most lane so as not to unnecessarily trouble the right turners. Two lanes for each 3-lane seems optimal so as to allow right-turners or stopped public utility vehicles entrance to the 3rd lanes. For example, cars on the right most lane of Ramon Magsaysay Ave can and will occupy the 3rd lane of Araneta once they take a right turn. In line with this, we avoid creating a merging point on the rightmost lane of Araneta by having only two lanes cross Aurora.
Unfortunately this otherwise optimal lane division which would promise speedy smoothness rarely happens. There are fewer cars taking a left turn to Aurora from Araneta. The five lanes at times becomes left, straight, straight, straight, straight. The right turners are blocked from their convenient escape from Araneta. And we will now have four lanes from Araneta and one lane from Ramon Magsaysay going towards a 3 lane street. It doesn't take serious math to know 5 streams of vehicles going to a 3 lane street is serious choking point. That there's SM Centerpoint with an entrance right by the corner does not help. And so do the lazy and uncaring people who are ignoring the overhead pedestrian bridge and crossing the street against the road traffic.
When I do go through this route, I will almost always be on the 3rd lane. What I do to somewhat make things a little better for me and the cars behind is to be positioned as left as possible but still on my lane. The idea is to make it look really difficult to merge from the 2nd lane to Araneta. If it works, my lane would be the best lane to be. At least I tried.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
No Si, Anti-Smoking Commuting
It used to be almost everyday that I commute to go to school, then work, and other places. I averaged 2 legs of jeepneys and buses and I almost never rode FX or taxi because I strangely felt they're less safe. One of the biggest annoyance I had with commuting then was the smoke -- not the carbon monoxide exhaust of inefficient jeeps and buses (which is terrible, but unavoidable) but the 2nd hand smoke I got to breathe from passenger and driver smokers.
Smoking was bad enough in bars and restaurants and other places, but there I always had the freedom to walk away and escape (which I almost always exercised), but in jeeps, having had to go down the jeep the moment the driver or a passenger lighted a cigarette in the middle of a ride was prohibitively expensive and impractical. I had little way of protesting except to get as far away from bad-smelling breaths and carcinogens and cover my nose and mouth with my sleeves -- I almost never brought handkerchiefs -- to show my silent annoyances.
What I did then was before I got on a ride, I checked if the driver was smoking or not. I would not ride a jeepney whose driver I knew beforehand as a smoker. There was a time I even tried taking down on my notebook the plate numbers I'd found to be "offenders". Nevertheless, this didn't really pan out well. Drivers often started the smoking session well into the ride. I'd given up on much and just went back to covering myself with little defense my shirt afforded.
So it was much a welcome surprise to me that there seemed to be fairly recent changes regarding this annoyance of mine. I wouldn't know how recent as I rarely heard news about what our estranged government had been doing. No Si - a play on Yosi, which itself is a play on Si-garil-yo. Actually I wasn't sure even if I heard things right. No more smoking on public transportation including jeeps and taxis? Is it too good to be true? Well, with how much jeepneys get away with so much, it feels indeed too good to be expected. But still, it's a welcome start.
Smoking was bad enough in bars and restaurants and other places, but there I always had the freedom to walk away and escape (which I almost always exercised), but in jeeps, having had to go down the jeep the moment the driver or a passenger lighted a cigarette in the middle of a ride was prohibitively expensive and impractical. I had little way of protesting except to get as far away from bad-smelling breaths and carcinogens and cover my nose and mouth with my sleeves -- I almost never brought handkerchiefs -- to show my silent annoyances.
What I did then was before I got on a ride, I checked if the driver was smoking or not. I would not ride a jeepney whose driver I knew beforehand as a smoker. There was a time I even tried taking down on my notebook the plate numbers I'd found to be "offenders". Nevertheless, this didn't really pan out well. Drivers often started the smoking session well into the ride. I'd given up on much and just went back to covering myself with little defense my shirt afforded.
So it was much a welcome surprise to me that there seemed to be fairly recent changes regarding this annoyance of mine. I wouldn't know how recent as I rarely heard news about what our estranged government had been doing. No Si - a play on Yosi, which itself is a play on Si-garil-yo. Actually I wasn't sure even if I heard things right. No more smoking on public transportation including jeeps and taxis? Is it too good to be true? Well, with how much jeepneys get away with so much, it feels indeed too good to be expected. But still, it's a welcome start.
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