EDSA
Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, commonly referred to by its acronym EDSA, is a major circumferential road around Metro Manila, Philippines. It passes through 6 of Metro Manila's 17 local government units or cities, namely, from north to south, Caloocan, Quezon City, San Juan, Mandaluyong, Makati, and Pasay.
Named after academic Epifanio de los Santos, the section of the road from Balintawak Interchange in Quezon City to Magallanes Interchange in Makati connects the North Luzon Expressway and South Luzon Expressway. The avenue passes through the major financial districts of the metropolis which are Triangle Park, Araneta City, Ortigas Center, Makati CBD, and Bay City. It is the longest and the most congested highway in the metropolis, stretching some.
Structure
The entire avenue forms part of Circumferential Road 4 of Metro Manila's arterial road network, National Route 1 of the Philippine highway network and Asian Highway 26 of the Asian Highway Network. The locations around the avenue were marked with great economic and industrial growth, proven by the fact that all but two industrial centers in the Metropolis are directly accessible from the thoroughfare. The decent economic growth of the areas around the avenue adds a significant volume of traffic on the avenue, and in recent estimates, and an average of 385,096 vehicles go through it every day.The avenue is a divided carriageway, often consisting of 12 lanes, 6 in either direction, with the elevated railroads Manila Metro Rail Transit System Line 3 and Manila Light Rail Transit System Line 1 often serving as its median. Although it is not an expressway, traffic rules and speed limits are strictly implemented to the vehicles that pass along it. It is operated by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority and is maintained and constantly being repaired by the Department of Public Works and Highways until Roxas Boulevard in Pasay. The extension from Roxas Boulevard to SM Mall of Asia, however, is under Philippine Reclamation Authority.
Route description
EDSA starts from the Bonifacio Monument Circle in Caloocan, its intersection with MacArthur Highway, Rizal Avenue Extension, and Samson Road, the western side of the C-4 Road. This roundabout is also the marker of the 1896 Revolution led by Andres Bonifacio. A portion of the road is in Caloocan. The Avenue then enters Quezon City through the Balintawak district, following an intersection with the North Luzon Expressway and A. Bonifacio Avenue at the Balintawak Interchange.EDSA crosses much of the northern part of Quezon City, passing through the Balintawak, Muñoz, and Project 7 districts. It sharply curves southwards after crossing the North Avenue-West Avenue Intersection in the Triangle Business Park. On the north side of EDSA is the SM North EDSA. In front of it are the TriNoma mall, with the Eton Centris seen afterwards. ABS-CBN Broadcasting Center and its transmitter can be easily seen from EDSA and continues southwards, slightly turning westwards slowly until it leaves the Triangle Park after crossing the East Avenue-Timog Avenue Intersection, where the GMA Network Center is located. It continues through the district of Cubao, entering the Araneta City after crossing the Aurora Boulevard Tunnel. In Cubao, several malls, infrastructure and offices are located. The Avenue curves southwards and crosses Santolan Road near Socorro, where the twin bases of Camps Crame and Aguinaldo are located. EDSA then continues on its route and serves as the boundary of the cities of San Juan and Quezon City. Primex Tower, the tallest building in San Juan, is located on the southbound side of EDSA at its junction with Connecticut Street, while People Power Monument can be seen on the northbound side of EDSA at its junction with White Plains Avenue. After in Quezon City, EDSA will eventually leave the city, straddling along the boundary with San Juan. EDSA enters Mandaluyong after crossing the borders of the Ortigas Center. In the Ortigas Center, some notable buildings around the area are the Department of Migrant Workers building, Robinsons Galleria, SM Megamall, and the bronze EDSA Shrine, a memorial church to the 1986 People Power Revolution. It then curves smoothly westwards after it crosses Boni Avenue and Pioneer Street, and crosses the Pasig River via the Guadalupe Bridge, leaving the city of Mandaluyong.
After crossing the Pasig River, EDSA enters the city of Makati through Guadalupe, where it provides access to the Rockwell Center, a major mixed-use business park in Makati, through J.P. Rizal Avenue. The highway also provides quick access to the city of Taguig nearby. After crossing Buendia Avenue, the highway enters the Ayala Center, an important commercial district in the Philippines. It also cuts through the exclusive villages of Bel-Air, Forbes Park, Urdaneta, Dasmariñas, and Magallanes. The road then curves eastwards, continues on a straight route to the city of Pasay, and passing the Chino Roces Avenue, Osmeña Highway and South Luzon Expressway through Magallanes Interchange.
EDSA enters Pasay shortly after crossing the Magallanes Interchange. In Pasay, the highway provides access to Ninoy Aquino International Airport via a flyover to Tramo Street. EDSA would pass through Pasay Rotonda within Taft Avenue and continues on a straight route until it crosses to Roxas Boulevard. After crossing Roxas Boulevard, it becomes known as EDSA Extension and enters Central Business Park 1-A of the Bay City reclamation area, where SM Mall of Asia is located. EDSA's terminus is at the Globe Rotunda fronting SM Mall of Asia.
Bicycle lanes
The entire span of EDSA has one-way Class II bike lanes along both sides of the road, established as part of the national government's Metropolitan Bike Lane Network and funded by the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the bicycle lanes along EDSA are paint separated while some sections have physical separation using bollards and concrete barriers.Traffic management
The lead agency that manages the flow of traffic along EDSA is the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, a government agency under the Office of the President of the Philippines and is advised by the Metro Manila Mayors League. One of the MMDA's traffic management schemes that is in effect on EDSA, among other major thoroughfares in the metropolis, is the Uniform Vehicular Volume Reduction Program.Many have observed that the cause of many traffic jams on EDSA is its change from being a highway to an avenue. This resulted the erection of erring establishment, buses and jeepneys. Subsequently, buses have been the target of other traffic management programs, like the MMDA's Organized Bus Route Program. The MMDA is strictly implementing also the Motorcycle and Bus laning in EDSA, making it the second highway in the Philippines ever to have such traffic rule to be enforced, after Commonwealth Avenue. The average speed of vehicles in EDSA is.
On January 18, 2016, strict implementation on bus lanes started on the Shaw–Guadalupe segment, where plastic barriers are placed and prohibited entry of private vehicles and taxis on the bus lanes except when turning to EDSA's side streets. Despite the plastic barrier, many private vehicles still enter the lanes.
In June 2020, bus routes in the avenue were rationalized, creating the EDSA Carousel line carried by the new EDSA Busway. The EDSA Busway is separated from normal road traffic and now used only for buses and emergency vehicles. The new bus route spans from Monumento to PITX, while the busway is divided mostly by concreted barriers and steel fences. The old rightmost bus lanes were now opened for all vehicles, with the avenue now having total of four to five public-use lanes per direction instead of three, excluding interchanges.
Decongestion program
A decongestion program under the Build! Build! Build! Infrastructure Program is ongoing to help decongest EDSA. This involves the construction of other roads and bridges that will divert traffic from the avenue. The government aims to reduce travel time from Cubao to Makati to 5–6 minutes.History
Construction of what was then called the North and South Circumferential Road began in 1939 under President Manuel L. Quezon, amidst Manila's rapid expansion. This necessitated inland growth and a planned new capital city, which became Quezon City. The construction team was led by engineers Florencio Moreno and Osmundo Munsod, integrating the former stretch of Calle Apelo Cruz from present-day Cabrera Street to Taft Avenue in Pasay and Calle Samson up to Balintawak in Quezon City to the east.The road, starting from North Bay Boulevard in Navotas and ending at Taft Avenue in Pasay, both then in Rizal, was partially opened in 1940, shortly before the outbreak of World War II and the subsequent Japanese occupation. However, was then discontinuous due to the Pasig River. It was then known as the Manila Circumferential Road or simply as Circumferential Road. During the war, its section in Diliman Estate served as a runway of the Quezon Airfield, along with Malawen Boulevard. The road was also renamed to Highway 54 and thus designated as Route 54. Due to the route number, there was a common misconception on that time that the avenue is long. The present-day North EDSA section in Caloocan and Quezon City was referred to as Calle Samson, while its section in Pasay was also known as P. Lovina Street. It was later renamed as McArthur Boulevard in 1945, and after the independence of the Philippines from the United States in 1946, it became known as Avenida 19 de Junio, after the birth date of national hero José Rizal.
In the 1950s, the northern end of the avenue was designated to its present terminus at Bonifacio Monument in Caloocan and its part west of it later becoming Samson Road, General San Miguel Street, and Letre Road. The avenue was widened from two to four lanes during this decade. Rizalists also wanted the avenue's name to remain 19 de Junio, while President Ramon Magsaysay wanted the avenue named after Rizal. Residents of Rizal province wanted the avenue to be named after a Rizaleño: the historian, jurist and scholar named Epifanio de los Santos y Cristóbal, who was born in Malabon. The Philippine Historical Committee, the Philippine Historical Association, the Philippine Library Association, Association of university and College Professors, the Philippine China Cultural Association, and the Philippine National Historical Society, led by fellow Rizaleños Eulogio Rodriguez and Juan Sumulong, supported the renaming of Highway 54 to Epifanio de los Santos Avenue.
On April 7, 1959, de los Santos' birth anniversary, Republic Act No. 2140 was passed, renaming the avenue to honor him. Rapid urbanization in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly after the annexation of several Rizal towns to the newly established National Capital Region, marked the growth of the industrial centers along the road, and several other roads connected to the avenue, such as Ayala Avenue and McKinley Road in Makati.
Construction of EDSA continued into the 1970s, including the construction of the Guadalupe Bridge in the 1960s to connect its segments on the north and south banks of the Pasig River, with the Pasay segment being delayed due to right-of-way issues. During the rule of President Ferdinand Marcos, traffic jams along the avenue started to build up. Several interchanges were constructed to relieve congestion, including the Balintawak and Magallanes Interchanges. Later, with the implementation of the Metro Manila Arterial Road System in 1965, in order to complete the Circumferential Road 4 system, EDSA was extended from Taft Avenue to Roxas Boulevard, occupying parcels of land along the old F. Rein Street and Del Pan Avenue in Pasay. Until the mid-1980s, many parts of the highway still overlooked vast grassland and open fields.