Araneta Ave, Crossing Aurora to N. Dominga

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.