I saw this passenger jeepney while on a stopover at a gas station inside the North Luzon expressway. It is the longest jeepney I have ever seen.
When I saw it, the first thought that came to my mind was how long does it take for this jeepney to fill up with people . Does it take off even with just one or two passengers? What if people are in a hurry?
It is possible to make the jeepney bigger and longer, but still, I don't believe that it can ever be a solution to our transportation problem.
The jeepney is not an engineering marvel that we can be proud of. It is inconvenient, poorly designed and inefficient as a mode of mass transport. It is also a major generator of pollution.
The kind of transportation system that we have says something about us. If the jeepney has become a national icon, it is because it is how we adapted to a weak and even corrupt government that can not give us a better alternative.
We were among the first countries in our region to have a rail transport. How did we lose it and ended up with the most backward transport system? It is time that we do something about it.
Let us have a real modern mass rapid transportation system. As for the jeepney, let us try to use our imagination to evolve it for other uses.
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