The Impact of Infrastructure on Daily Life: A Personal Journey

I live in Denver, Colorado, one of several major cities in the United States. I drive my car about 50 miles every day for work and I’ve always been a little bit irritated by the strict enforcement of traffic laws and street ordinances in the city. It all seems authoritarian, and the frustration doesn’t stop there. It stems out to the unnecessarily bureaucratic processes of obtaining licenses or pulling building permits which I do regularly for my work.

Well, this year I was in the Philippines. It is a beautiful country…in some places. The tourist resorts are especially charming. But my purpose there was not to stay at a resort. The purpose of my visit was to experience the raw culture and day to day life of the locals in the provinces. So I rented a motorcycle and drove north, south, east and west until I hit the coast line and could go no further.

I drove down busy streets and crowded highways in shoulder-to-shoulder moped traffic, through mountain trails and rugged jungle terrains, over bridges and giant rivers like the Pampanga and the Santo Tomas river, into sketchy neighborhoods and down dark alleyways that led right to the front door of some impoverished home. Some of these homes were nothing more than pieces of sheet metal slapped together with families inside sitting on dirt floors and eating with their hands from a shared bowl of rice.

From Bureaucracy to Freedom: The Shocking Realities of Traffic in Denver vs. the Philippines

I shook hands with politicians and visited with them in their relatively rich homes with air conditioning and refrigerators. I found my place with the locals, taking a seat and drinking Philippine beer at a fold-out table in the street. They did not have fancy bars or restaurants for entertainment the way we do in the United States. They bought whatever alcohol they could afford (usually Red Horse, a Philippine beer, Alfonso or Emperador, Philippine brandies) and drank it at home.

The experience was rich, romantic and exciting, but traveling the country was difficult. Even in the distant provinces and small villages (known in the Philippines as “barangays”), traffic was a nightmare. From 5am to 10pm motorcycles, tricycles, jeepneys, buses and automobiles honked their horns and jockeyed for position on one-lane roads. Parked vehicles crowded the shoulders of the road to either side so there was no place to walk except in the street, alongside the traffic. Sidewalks were rare.

I squeezed into the traffic the best I could on my tiny 155cc motorcycle. My front tire nearly touched the rear bumper of the vehicle in front of me as I choked down their exhaust. Emissions regulations seemed non-existent and the pollution from all of the traffic was nauseating. I kept two fingers steady over the brake for the sudden stops. Blinkers were ignored, vehicles would stop without warning, other vehicles would pull out into oncoming traffic. There were no stop signs, no traffic lights, no clear markings or rules of the road.

The Value of Proper Infrastructure: A Denver Resident’s Eye-Opening Experience in the Philippines

I watched an ambulance attempt to get through the traffic with it’s emergency lights on, but the vehicles in front of it would not pull aside. The motorcycles behind the ambulance passed it to either side. The motorcycle traffic simply did not stop, no matter the obstruction. They would find a way to squeeze through, and they would keep trickling right on down the highway, around cars, on dirt shoulders, on the sidewalk (if there happened to be a sidewalk).

Shop owners set tables and chairs out in the street with a canopy or umbrella over them, and people ate there with the traffic screaming by. They did not seem to mind. Children played ball in the street. Dogs, chickens, roosters and goats all shared the streets as well. I could not find a quiet place to sit and have a cold beer to take a rest from the road. That sort of thing did not seem to exist in this culture. Neighborhood or community parks where one could take refuge in nature were also unseen or unheard of.

I pulled up against a random building to catch the shade that it cast slightly to one side. The building was vacant, crumbled and half sunken in a lot of standing water. An impossible jumble of power lines hung in the air above. Trash and debris lined the water below. My head started to ache from all the emissions and the noise on the crowded roads that I had been traveling all day. I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and wiped the sweat from my forehead. It was sweltering hot in January, and I had the sensation that a good 5 to 10 years was shaved off my lifespan just by the exposure to this experience.

What I Learned About Street and Sidewalk Ordinances After Driving Through the Philippines

I came back to the United States with a different outlook on street and sidewalk ordinances. For the first time in my life I realized that I am lucky to have a sidewalk to walk on, and that it is free of debris. Proper infrastructure and public transportation systems are also a blessing. Even the traffic laws that, although sometimes are taken advantage of by an overzealous officer who is out to convict, are a blessing in that they keep order and discipline in the flow of traffic.

I guess you could say I’m a changed man. I’ve complained about things that many people would be grateful to have. I’ve shown contempt of the order that governs our beautiful parks and clean streets. I’ve polluted the air with my motorcycle that puts out more emissions than a dozen front end loaders. I’ve slandered the laws that enforce safe building procedures.

Of course some laws are excessive. Some government entities or departments overstep their authority. Some authorities themselves need to be checked. But is there any force in this world that is purely good? Is it not the nature of the universe that in spite of best practices and policies, some corruption will exist? Is that sufficient reason to say down with the entire system?

What are your thoughts on this matter? Please chime in and drop a comment below.