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One Saturday just last month, a supposed-to-be 2-hour drive to Batangas turned out to be one of the worst driving experience of my life. I live in a Quezon City apartment near UP and have a job in Eastwood, and every week I go home to Batangas and my family. There wasn’t much fuzz with that a year ago when SLEX was still not under “renovation,” but now, trying to go home at the same time of day as I did before makes me wish for the n^th time I didn’t have to work in the city–but of course, I have to. So after that Saturday wherein I was caught up in traffic for 6 hours, I told myself something needs to be done and I just have to modify my travel habits to cope up with the current road situation. Now, after four weeks of experimentation, I might have just found my answers. For those people who have the same route(or at least parts of it) as I do and who want to retain that pleasant driving experience they had right after learning how to drive and before discovering that the city is not the race track we imagine it to be: read on.

Here’s my route:

Route A: From UP, I use C.P. Garcia turning right to Katipunan

B: From Katipunan to C5

C: C5 to South Luzon Expressway

D: and finally from SLEX to Calamba Exit to Star Tollway

Here are the scenarios when I leave at these given times of the day, adjusting the times I‘d be in a specific route. I’ve only considered the actual hours I can go home, that is, after work. May I inform you that from Lipa to Katipunan on an early Monday morning takes only 1 ½ hours.

FRIDAY
5 pm : You’re going to get clobbered at all routes, more so in Routes B and C, spending at least an hour and a half for both. Total Travel Time: 3-4 hours.

6-9 pm : Same traffic conditions, and route C is worse. Total Travel Time 4-5 hours.

>10 pm : C5 is pretty much freed up at this point, but would you believe that 10-11 pm is the worst time to be using SLEX? I can only wonder where all those cars are coming from, or going to. I guess most motorists now think that after 10 pm is late enough, and so they all leave and use the same road at the same time. Heavy SLEX traffic. Total Travel Time: 3-4 hours.

>11 pm : Routes A,B, D are almost normal roads again, but still you can only run at peak 40 km/h on SLEX because of all the road hazards the government contractors have managed to “put out of our way.” Total Travel Time: 2-3 hours.

Friday Recommendation:
Unless the people you go home to are still awake beyond 11pm, and you don’t mind the time you wasted sitting inside your car all night, not to mention the stressful driving, DON’T GO HOME on a Friday.

SATURDAY

1-5 am : All routes are almost empty. Some of my friends actually go home during these hours, but I tell you, I’ve tried this and I almost killed myself thrice because it was very hard to drive while consciously trying to be awake. Total Travel Time + Risk: 2 hours.

5 am : SLEX is still free, and the human body is almost totally awake. Total Travel Time: 2 hours.

6am : Most people who tried to sleep the night in the city go home South during this hour. Expect moderate traffic and frequent stops at SLEX. Total Travel Time: 2-3 hours.

7am : As I have observed, traffic during these hours up to the afternoon are unpredictable. The concept of leaving earlier in order to arrive at a much earlier time is defied during this point. Total Travel Time: 2-4 hours.

5-10 pm: Almost the same grueling scenario as on a Friday. Total Travel Time: 3-5 hours.

Saturday Recommendation:
5 am is the best time. In the afternoon, leave after lunch, from 1 to 3 pm. Most people are either still eating, inside malls, or sleeping during these times. Prepare to take in some heat though. The sun is not too friendly in the afternoon.



SUNDAY

If you are left with no choice but to go home on a Sunday, then anytime would be the best time. I guess. I can only imagine. I’m sorry I don’t have any information on this, because I haven’t tested the roads on a Sunday. It kinda defeats the purpose of going home so that you can be with your family.

*
I hope I was able to help regular and would-be Batangas-bound drivers. I have some other information I would like to share with you guys regarding which lanes to take for all routes. I noticed an hour or even more can be shaved from your Total Travel Time only if you knew which lanes move faster for a given route. But that is entirely a different topic, and deserves another post to its own. Watch out for that one.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 7th, 2007 at 8:06 pm and is filed under Batangas, Road Trip, Travel Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.