Is Carless Careless?

Maybe, this is for people who could afford to take time off on weekends until late night. Maybe, this is for people who don’t make most of their time to earn a few pesos for their families. Maybe, this is for people who, even if they had the time, would rather rest at home.

I get the picture. Streets are alive with different activities: sports, physical exercises like jogging, biking, martial arts, chalk art on the roads, mural paintings, strolling families with pets, vendors of foodstuffs and trinkets along the sidewalks, all undisrupted by moving vehicles. You have to admit. Just the thought of it brings about a warm, homely family atmosphere. It’s a scene that Fernando Amorsolo would paint. Families and friends are freely enjoying the fair weather in an open space. In one corner, a group of women are doing Zumba. On the next corner, some young men are doing martial arts. A short distance along the road, some children are doing chalk art. There are recreational activities. People are playing. People are walking and strolling. It’s a light, peaceful, friendly environment. Who wouldn’t want a community like this?

Activities like this open opportunities and promote physical fitness. People of different ages are given opportunity to play and engage in sports activities. This includes martial arts. This would support discipline. This would Provide venues for engagement in culture and arts. Artists can show their skills and work. Children can learn their skills and craft. Although this happens for relatively few hours and limited space, car smoke is suspended, restraining air pollution a bit for a little while. With all those combined, carless activities would promote physical and mental health. It would build community. Since participants would naturally buy goods and/or eat food from the stores and shops along the road, it would support commerce and tourism.

Although drivers who were unaware of the closed roads may get a bit of shock, it was easier not to go through Magsaysay. There are alternate routes that they could take to get to the other side of the city. I suppose, traffic would be lighter on late Sunday afternoons. It would be quite difficult for congregation members )especially, the elderly) who would be forced to walk to and from church to the nearest corner on which they could get a ride.

Carless in centro on a weekend from 4 to 11 pm (7 hours, more than a quarter of a day) right smack in the middle of the Christmas season is a different story. This is Centro. This is the central business district. People from within and outside naga come here to shop, not leisurely. People buy in bulk for household needs. Retailers buy goods for their businesses back in their barangays and towns. Since it’s the season, shoppers would be buying ingredients, decoration materials, goods for gifts in bulk, for Christmas parties. Some families may be starting to buy groceries for noche Buena. People come here to get a ride from one terminal to another. Passengers from outside Camarines Sur from a bus that dropped them off at the Central Bus Station would go to Centro to get another ride to the Northbound Terminal or to the Eastbound Terminal. Many people whose work place are in Centro would just want to go home easily after a day’s work.

Employees could walk a few blocks to catch a ride home. Yes, sure, we do this during the fiesta. But, of course, it would have been more convenient if we could hop in a tricycle or jeepney on the usual spots. What’s a tired passenger from Legazpi going home to Libmanan, or from Tabaco to Tinambac supposed to do? Walk through Centro to make to the other terminal?(Yes, I know. There are alternate routes.) Shoppers with a bulky purchase would (with no other choice) carry their heavy baggage through blocks to the area where they could get a jeepney or tricycle ride home. What’s that you say? Book a grab? There were no riders at that time, probably because of the inconvenience. Public utility vehicle drivers get their trade disrupted. Sharply, they got shoved aside from earning their keep in a regular manner, to make way for recreation. These people just want to get by, earning some to take home to their families.

In the first place, roads were paved for motor vehicles, not for pedestrians. If those were for walkers and strollers, walkways would have been built instead. If those were built for recreational activities, large spaces with a lawn would have been constructed instead. If roads were made for drawing and painting, a studio would have been built. Roads are for cars. That’s what they’re made for. If people want walking and strolling, sports and physical fitness activities, art activities, food and souvenir shops, I believe they’re already doing those in the malls, without disrupting traffic, commuters, shoppers and employees. They could also do that in the subdivisions or villages where minimal traffic would be disrupt. (But then, if I were a resident of that village, I would probably be annoyed.)

But, I guess, there are people who enjoy this. So, I think, the trick would be, if you’re not the type who goes for this sort of thing, is to stay away from Centro before the roads close.

1 Corinthians 6:12: “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything.