Towards just transitions in cities of the Global South: Civil society and street experiments against the Carmageddon in Metro Manila, Philippines

Abstract

There is no bigger problem in daily urban life other than traffic congestion in Metro Manila, the capital of the Philippines. With a population of around 13.5 million people in 2020, this metropolis is globally notorious for its ‘carmageddon.’ Its streets transform into giant parking lots, which entails the loss of time, productivity, and other vital resources. Car-centrism is at the core of this mobility problem. However, government solutions to the traffic problem are overly focused on infrastructure and technological interventions. In this article, we engage with how civil society plays a fundamental role in initiating and sustaining street experiments in constituent cities of Metro Manila and how they influence change in transport governance through utilising the (1) bibingka or sandwich approach and (2) acting as a ‘critical friend.’ We share an example of the bibingka approach through the Bayanihan sa Daan (Collective Heroism in the Road), a road-sharing initiative in the busy streets of the Ortigas business district in Pasig City, Metro Manila. Meanwhile, we present cases of how civil society organisations acted as a critical friend to initiate street experiments and reforms through organisational partnership or appointment of their members to positions in government transport agencies. Through these approaches, we show that civil society participation in initiating street experiments is critical to ensuring that solutions to the traffic problem contribute to the mobility of people rather than of cars. In this vein, we put forward street experiments as fundamental to ensuring just transitions towards realising mobility justice, especially in cities of the Global South.