There’s a battle over older Jeepneys in the Philippines. The issue was raised as early as 2013, based on a BBC report, but has been revived according to the report below.
“The Philippines has revived plans to remove jeepneys that are older than 10 years from Manila’s gridlocked streets, stirring a fresh debate on the fate of the iconic vehicles that have been chugging along the streets since the 1950s.
The Philippine government and society have been talking about the “jeepney phaseout” for decades and the new “jeepney modernization” plan is an attempt to cut traffic emissions and ease the ever-worsening traffic congestion currently gripping the Philippine capital.
However, jeepney operators and drivers are up in arms over the planned measure, saying it is meant to kill off small transport operators in the country.”
Read more at http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-03/29/c_136167206.htm
What they should be doing is follow India’s example. There it was the awful polluting three wheelers that everyone ran on cooking kerosene. The government ran a program to convert them to propane and established a rock solid conversion date. I think they even subsidized the program. Problem solved and poor people retained their inexpensive transport vehicles. If the Philippine problem is not pollution, then this is simply big guys trying to squeeze out small guys.
Seems like a good point!
I spent a few weeks there in the military and loved the jeepneys all over the place…it was very cool and very unique. Most of them are toyota or nissan trucks underneath.