Finally, a footbridge…

Up to until a year ago, I was among just a few people who would cross North Ave., the street fronting the SM North Edsa Mall, Quezon City, navigating our way through a small opening in the fence that blocked the middle island of the street. We were crossing to get a jeepney ride, usually, at the other side of this wide street, as the nearest official jeepney terminal is still many meters away on the left side of SM, and the long and tall footbridge crossing EDSA was also many meters away on SM’s right side. And it was hard to go to these two spots if you’re carrying many grocery bags from SM, as was usual in my case (and I wouldn’t want to spend so much more on taxi fare). It wasn’t really illegal to cross that street from SM--the genius traffic enforcers just wanted to make the pedestrians suffer a little more, heheh.

Anyway, that was until about a year ago, like I said. It’s a different story nowadays ever since the Trinoma Mall (of the Ayala family) was put up on THAT other side of SM North Edsa Mall (THAT other side used to be a vacant lot with the nearby last terminal of the MRT—the EDSA train--which I believe was a government property; how that was purchased by the Ayala family maybe worth another story). People in droves now cross the same street that I and just a few others before were crossing. Of course, there’s now a wider space and not a just a small opening on the middle island that people can use in going to both sides of the street. Problem is, however, with two big malls now sandwiching North Ave., it’s a big headache for the traffic enforcers (and the mall guards) on how to control the flow of the people and the increased number of vehicular traffic. And believe me, the not-so-efficient-trafficking skills of these enforcers is even a bigger headache for the pedestrians and the vehicle drivers.

Well, the good news is that a footbridge (although a small one) is now being built over North Ave., connecting the sidewalks on both sides. The construction started a few weeks ago with the laying of big posts on the sidewalks. Yesterday, a large metal sheet with small posts was already up there on the center of the road. Hopefully, the footbridge will be usable next month, when even more people and more vehicles will traversing along this mall avenue because of the coming holiday season. What a comfort that will be, indeed! (I have to ask my friend Tess who works in Ayala company on who financed the footbridge. Did the Sy family ([of SM Mall with branches all over the Philippines] and Ayala family [of Trinoma Mall and other big malls in the metropolis] finally cooperate and put their money together? It will be gratifying to know if they indeed do cooperate, and not just compete, with each other.)