Ayala Avenue, one of the busiest, most heavily used roads in Makati City will be closed to motorized traffic on Sunday mornings from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. starting on September 3, 2023. This was announced by the Makati City local government via the Make It Makati Facebook page.
Make It Makati's FB post regarding the Sunday morning closures of Ayala Ave.
This road closure will happen every Sunday for the month of September 2023 and it will allow Makati residents and visitors to use the thoroughfare for various activities. This includes jogging, morning exercises, cycling, walking their pets, strolling, skateboarding, rollerblading, etc.
Note that Ayala Ave. is 2.3 kilometers long so there’s a lot of space for the said activities. As mentioned though, this road is a heavily used route as it leads to many of the city’s major destinations like Glorietta, Makati Shangri-La Hotel, the Ayala Triangle, Makati Medical Center, etc. As such, we are curious to see how this Sunday morning road closure for the road can affect traffic.
So as a precaution, it is advised that motorists who have plans to go to areas near or adjacent to Ayala Ave. on Sundays should plan their routes with the road closure in mind. But as of the moment, the City of Makati has yet to provide an alternative routing map to suggest other roads in lieu of the Ayala Ave.
Ayala Avenue [Photo: Wikipedia Commons]
Note that this isn’t the first time that Makati City has closed off roads for the sake of pedestrians. It has in fact, been committed to the idea of being a walkable city for quite some time. Paseo de Roxas for instance has been pedestrianized via the “Fitness Loop” lane every weekend from Saturday 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Sunday since 2016.
There’s also the Paseo de Roxas-Villar pedestrian underpass which links the northern section of the Ayala Triangle Gardens to Salcedo Village. This, in turn, was opened last year.
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