Reforms in Metro Manila's bus transport system hastened by the Covid-19 pandemic: A policy capacity analysis of the EDSA busway

Abstract

In response to the health and mobility issues caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Philippine government took advantage of opportunities to expedite public transport reforms by converting a portion of Epifanio delos Santos Avenue (EDSA), Metro Manila's busiest thoroughfare, into a dedicated busway. This deserves a closer look since historically, solutions catering to EDSA have been bereft with challenges given the overlapping powers of various authorities and multitude of interests that benefit from the status-quo. Through semi-structured interviews with key actors followed by a policy capacity analysis, the authors found that the pandemic provided opportunities for the key institutions to gain political legitimacy and authority that pushed its stakeholders to cooperate. However, this new solution forced them to take on tasks that are outside their regular responsibilities so while they were able to provide measures to make EDSA Busway succeed in the short-term, much work needs to be done to sustain the gains achieved.