Mariana and Marge
How people experience the Philippine urban transportation system in 2030
Marge is a lawyer and a single mom to two kids. Her older child, Marco, is already in second grade. Her younger child, Mariana, is just 4 years old.
Mariana has special needs. Marge enrolled her in a special education daycare.
Thankfully Marco is independent enough that he can walk to school on his own even though he is just 7 years old. The 20-minute walk to school is safe, and other kids Marco’s age or even younger make the same daily walk.
Marge sees Marco off and makes sure he’s got a packed lunch and the GPS tracker on his wrist. She then bundles Mariana into a stroller, and mother-and-daughter make their way to the daycare, also on foot. The well-paved sidewalks have wheelchair ramps at the curb, which are also really convenient for parents with strollers.
Today, a portion of a sidewalk was under repair and was blocked off. It wasn’t a problem because the city sidewalk maintenance crew had created temporary ramps and blocked off part of the road so pedestrians, and parents pushing strollers, could easily detour and avoid the construction area.
Marge was happy to see the repair work. She had reported the broken sidewalk just two days ago using her phone app.
Marge checked Mariana into the daycare a few minutes later. There is an e-jeepney stop on the same block as the daycare with a route that takes Marge directly to her office in about 30 minutes. There’s also a bus that takes a slightly different route. It gets her to the office in 40 minutes.
Marge checks her transportation phone app and sees that the e-jeep is coming ahead of the bus this morning and is just 5 minutes away. She also checks on Marco’s location and sees that he’s safely at school.
She’s happy to wait, and five minutes later, she’s seated in the e-jeepney. Marge used to get anxious about riding the jeeps. She’s a bit on the plus side, and she was always conscious of the space she would take up. But the new e-jeeps have very comfortable seats, and the way the intervals are scheduled means they are never crowded.
She will be tired on the return trip home but will not have to worry about Marco’s safe walk home or her walk with Mariana in the stroller. On the way back from the daycare, Marge sees that the sidewalk repair crew has completed their job. Marge gets a quick ping on her phone, a notice replying to her report from two days ago. It told her the crew was done (it included pictures of the finished work) and that the barriers should be down by tomorrow. The message also thanked her for being a good citizen.
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