Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, commonly referred to by its acronym EDSA (), is a major circumferential road around Metro Manila, Philippines named after academic Epifanio de los Santos. It passes through 6 of Metro Manila's 17 local government units or cities, namely, from north to south, Caloocan, Quezon City, San Juan, Mandaluyong, Makati, and Pasay. It is the longest and the most congested highway in the metropolis, stretching some .
Structure EDSA forms part of Circumferential Road 4 (C-4) of Metro Manila's arterial road network, National Route 1 (N1) of the Philippine highway network and Asian Highway 26 (AH26) of the Asian Highway Network. The locations around the avenue were marked with great economic and industrial growth, proven by the fact that all but five financial and industrial centers or districts and four SM Supermalls in the metropolis are directly accessible and passing from the thoroughfare which are SM North EDSA, Triangle Park, Araneta City, Ortigas Center, SM Megamall, Makati CBD, SM Makati, Bay City, and SM Mall of Asia. The decent economic growth of the areas around the avenue adds a significant volume of traffic on the avenue, and in recent estimates, and an average of 385,096 vehicles go through it every day.
The whole avenue serves as an access point or gateway to other geographical divisions of Luzon outside Metro Manila, Visayas, and the capital city of Manila which are (with notable roads shown in parenthesis): Bonifacio Monument in Caloocan to SM North EDSA in Quezon City: Central and Northern Luzon (MacArthur Highway and North Luzon Expressway (NLEX)) SM North EDSA in Quezon City to SM Mall of Asia in Pasay: Southern Luzon and Visayas (Aurora Boulevard, Ortigas Avenue, Magallanes Interchange to South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) and STAR Tollway, Harrison Street, Elpidio Quirino Avenue and Diego Cera Avenue to Zapote River at the boundary of the metropolitan area's Las Piñas and Bacoor in Cavite, Roxas Boulevard to Manila–Cavite Expressway (CAVITEX), and Macapagal Boulevard and J.W. Diokno Boulevard to Seaside Drive, Pacific Avenue and CAVITEX) Bonifacio Monument to Balintawak Interchange and Makati CBD in Makati to SM Mall of Asia: Manila (Rizal Avenue, Andres Bonifacio Avenue, Buendia Avenue, Antonio Arnaiz Avenue, Magallanes Interchange to Osmeña Highway, Taft Avenue, Roxas Boulevard, Macapagal Boulevard, Magdalena Jalandoni Street and Vicente Sotto Street to Roxas Boulevard, and J.W. Diokno Boulevard, Atang Dela Rama Street and also Vicente Sotto Street to Roxas Boulevard).
The road is a divided carriageway, often consisting of 12 lanes, 6 in either direction, with the elevated railroads Manila Metro Rail Transit System Line 3 and Manila Light Rail Transit System Line 1 often serving as its median. Although it is not an expressway, traffic rules and speed limits are strictly implemented to the vehicles that pass along it. It is operated by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, and is maintained by the Department of Public Works and Highways from Bonifacio Monument in Caloocan to Roxas Boulevard in Pasay and Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA) from Roxas Boulevard to SM Mall of Asia.
Route description
EDSA starts from the Bonifacio Monument (Monumento) Circle in Caloocan, its intersection with MacArthur Highway, Rizal Avenue Extension, and Samson Road, the western side of the C-4 Road. This roundabout is also the marker of the 1896 Revolution led by Andres Bonifacio. A portion of the road is in Caloocan. The Avenue then enters Quezon City through the Balintawak district, following an intersection with the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) and A. Bonifacio Avenue at the Balintawak Interchange.
EDSA crosses much of the northern part of Quezon City, passing through the Balintawak, Muñoz, and Project 7 districts. It sharply curves southwards after crossing the North Avenue-West Avenue Intersection in the Triangle Business Park. On the north side of EDSA is the SM North EDSA. In front of it are the TriNoma mall, with the Eton Centris seen afterwards. The soon-to-be demolished ABS-CBN Broadcasting Center and transmitter, and ELJ Communications Center, with the whole compound serving as headquarters of ABS-CBN Corporation, can be easily seen from EDSA and continues southwards, slightly turning westwards slowly until it leaves the Triangle Park after crossing the East Avenue-Timog Avenue Intersection, where GMA's GMA Network Center is located. It continues through the district of Cubao, entering the Araneta City after crossing the Aurora Boulevard Tunnel. In Cubao, several malls, infrastructure and offices are located. The Avenue curves southwards and crosses Santolan Road near Socorro, where the twin bases of Camps Crame and Aguinaldo are located. EDSA then continues on its route and serves as the boundary of the cities of San Juan and Quezon City. Primex Tower, the tallest building in San Juan, is located on the southbound side of EDSA at its junction with Connecticut Street, while People Power Monument can be seen on the northbound side of EDSA at its junction with White Plains Avenue. After in Quezon City, EDSA will eventually leave the city, straddling along the boundary with San Juan. EDSA enters Mandaluyong after crossing the borders of the Ortigas Center. In the Ortigas Center, some notable buildings around the area are the Department of Migrant Workers building, Robinsons Galleria, SM Megamall, and the bronze EDSA Shrine, a memorial church to the 1986 People Power Revolution. It then curves smoothly westwards after it crosses Boni Avenue and Pioneer Street, and crosses the Pasig River via the Guadalupe Bridge, leaving the city of Mandaluyong.
After crossing the Pasig River, EDSA enters the city of Makati through Guadalupe, where it provides access to the Rockwell Center, a major mixed-use business park in Makati, through J.P. Rizal Avenue. The highway also provides quick access to the city of Taguig nearby. After crossing Buendia Avenue, the highway enters the Ayala Center, an important commercial district in the Philippines. It also cuts through the exclusive villages of Bel-Air, Forbes Park, Urdaneta, Dasmariñas, and Magallanes. The road then curves eastwards, continues on a straight route to the city of Pasay, and passing the Chino Roces Avenue, Osmeña Highway and South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) through Magallanes Interchange.
EDSA enters Pasay shortly after crossing the Magallanes Interchange. In Pasay, the highway provides access to Ninoy Aquino International Airport via a flyover to Tramo Street. EDSA would pass through Pasay Rotonda within Taft Avenue and continues on a straight route until its terminus at Globe Rotunda and SM Mall of Asia along J.W. Diokno Boulevard. The avenue then intersects with Roxas Boulevard where the former headquarters of ABS-CBN before its relocation to Quezon City which is outside the premises of EDSA but still visible from the avenue and Radio Philippines Network (RPN) can be seen which is now occupied by Kanlaon Condominium as well as being a halfway of the boulevard's landlocked section from Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) compound after passing the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) complex to Manila–Cavite Expressway (CAVITEX). After intersecting Roxas Boulevard, it becomes known as EDSA Extension which is a short extension of the avenue where it enters Central Business Park 1-A of the Bay City reclamation area, and crosses the Macapagal Boulevard and Sunrise Drive. EDSA ends at a rotunda and SM mall mentioned before.
Bicycle lanes
The entire span of EDSA has one-way Class II bike lanes along both sides of the road, established as part of the national government's Metropolitan Bike Lane Network and funded by the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the bicycle lanes along EDSA are paint separated while some sections have physical separation using bollards and concrete barriers. During the rehabilitation, it is slowly being replaced by a shared bicycle and pedestrian lane.
Traffic management
The lead agency that manages the flow of traffic along EDSA is the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA), a government agency under the Office of the President of the Philippines and is advised by the Metro Manila Mayors League. One of the MMDA's traffic management schemes that is in effect on EDSA, among other major thoroughfares in the metropolis, is the Uniform Vehicular Volume Reduction Program.
Many have observed that the cause of many traffic jams on EDSA is its change from being a highway to an avenue. This resulted the erection of erring establishment, buses and jeepneys. Subsequently, buses have been the target of other traffic management programs, like the MMDA's Organized Bus Route Program. The MMDA is strictly implementing also the Motorcycle and Bus laning in EDSA, making it the second highway in the Philippines ever to have such traffic rule to be enforced, after Commonwealth Avenue. The average speed of vehicles in EDSA is .
On January 18, 2016, strict implementation on bus lanes started on the Shaw–Guadalupe segment, where plastic barriers are placed and prohibited entry of private vehicles and taxis on the bus lanes except when turning to EDSA's side streets. Despite the plastic barrier, many private vehicles still enter the lanes.
In June 2020, bus routes in the avenue were rationalized, creating the EDSA Carousel line carried by the new EDSA Busway. The EDSA Busway is separated from normal road traffic and now used only for buses and emergency vehicles. The new bus route spans from Monumento to PITX, while the busway is divided mostly by concreted barriers and steel fences. The old rightmost bus lanes were now opened for all vehicles, with the avenue now having total of four to five public-use lanes per direction instead of three, excluding interchanges.
Decongestion program
A decongestion program under the Build! Build! Build! Infrastructure Program is ongoing to help decongest EDSA (which is under overcapacity, carrying 402,000 vehicles daily while has the capacity of 288,000). This involves the construction of other roads and bridges that will divert traffic from the avenue. The government aims to reduce travel time from Cubao to Makati to 5–6 minutes.
History
Construction of what was then called the North and South Circumferential Road began in 1939 under President Manuel L. Quezon, amidst Manila's rapid expansion. This necessitated inland growth and a planned new capital city, which became Quezon City. The construction team was led by engineers Florencio Moreno and Osmundo Munsod, integrating the former stretch of Calle Apelo Cruz from present-day Cabrera Street to Taft Avenue in Pasay and Calle Samson up to Balintawak in Quezon City at the east.
The road, starting from North Bay Boulevard in Navotas and ending at Taft Avenue (formerly known as Taft Avenue Extension / Manila South Road) in Pasay, both then in Rizal, was partially opened in 1940, shortly before the outbreak of World War II and the subsequent Japanese occupation. However, was then discontinuous due to the Pasig River. It was then known as the Manila Circumferential Road or simply as Circumferential Road. During the war, its section in Diliman Estate served as a runway of the Quezon Airfield, along with Malawen Boulevard (now Quezon Avenue). The road was also renamed to Highway 54 and thus designated as Route 54. Due to the route number, there was a common misconception on that time that the avenue is long. The present-day North EDSA section in Caloocan and Quezon City was referred to as Calle Samson (Samson Street), while its section in Pasay was also known as P. Lovina Street. It was later renamed as McArthur Boulevard in 1945, and after the independence of the Philippines from the United States in 1946, it became known as Avenida 19 de Junio (June 19 Avenue), after the birth date of national hero José Rizal.