Line Extensions and Rehabilitations Expected To Aid In Decongesting Traffic

Congestion in Metro Manila
According to traffic navigation app Waze, Metro Manila is ranked number 1 in terms of congestion with it taking an average of 4.9 minutes to travel just one kilometer. It also lists Metro Manila drivers as the most miserable in Asia.

Boston Consulting Group also conducted a study and found out that the average Filipino spends 66 minutes a day waiting in traffic. This translates to waiting a total of 16 days in a year or a total of roughly nine years of being stuck in traffic in a span of 40 years.

Given these statistics, it is no wonder that Asian Development Bank listed Metro Manila as the most congested place in the world.

Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) estimates that the opportunity cost lost to traffic amounts to P3.5 billion a day. If left unresolved, Jica forecasts that this amount would continue to grow reaching P5.4 billion by 2023.

More roads and better public transport seen as the solution
In light of this pressing issue, the government has made resolving traffic its top priority. One of the flagship programs of the Duterte Administration is the Build, Build, Build Program. This program looks to address our country's lack of infrastructure by building highways, roads, bridges, and railways to decongest the country.

The administration's initiatives can be divided into two: (1) building more roads and (2) improving public transport. By building more roads, creating more lanes, constructing new bridges, and even duplicating our roads by building vertically creating skyways, the government is essentially increasing road capacity in hopes of keeping up with the number of cars that increases by a double digit rate each year. Space however is limited and scarce especially in the cities as such the government is also planning on improving public transportation by creating more railways to help facilitate the flow of people from one point to another.

Both these initiatives work hand-in-hand in improving the traffic situation. By ensuring a more efficient and comfortable means of public transportation, people would be encouraged to shift from bringing their own cars to commuting as commuting is the relatively cheaper option.

More developed countries such as Japan and Hong Kong encourage their citizens to commute and to encourage such they have efficient high-speed train lines in place. In fact, Japanese trains have a set schedule and are rarely late.

Problem With Our Current Railway System
Looking at this model, the Philippines is also improving its current railroad portfolio. Currently there are four train lines in Metro Manila namely - the LRT 1, the LRT 2, the MRT 3, and the Philippine National Railroad (PNR). These 4 train lines cater to more than 1.3 million commuters.

While commuting using the railway system is cheaper and allows passengers to skip the heavily-clogged roads thereby saving time, many people are discouraged from using such because of the problems our railway system faces. First, the MRT 1 and MRT 3 frequently breakdown forcing passengers to have to alight halfway and walk to the nearest station. Second, people are also discouraged from using our railway because of the lack of trains in our railways to meet the demand for such service. Oftentimes, there would be long lines and trains would be super jampacked inside. This gave rise to the notion that when you come out of the train you are already a warrior because by the time you come out of the train you would already look haggard and be very sweaty. As such the government is undertaking programs to rehabilitate our railway system.

Light Rail Transit 1 (LRT 1)
The LRT Line 1 began operations in 1984 and it currently spans 21 kilometers and has 20 stations from Roosevelt to Baclaran and links the cities of Quezon City, Caloocan, Manila, and Pasay. Currently, it has a ridership of 300,000 passengers per day.

Last April 2019, construction began for the 11.7 kilometer extension of the LRT 1 line that would connect the train line from Baclaran all the way to Cavite in the south. This extension would add eight new stations to the line and daily ridership is expected to increase from 300,000 to 800,000. This would also help people coming from the south to easily travel to Metro Manila.

Light Rail Transit 2 (LRT 2)
The LRT Line 2 began operations in 2003 and has a daily ridership of 180,000 commuters. It spans 16.75 kilometers and has 11 stations.This line connecta Manila, San Juan, Quezon City, and Marikina. Of the four railways, the LRT 2 is the least crowded as ridership is not close to its maximum capacity.

Originally, the LRT 2's end stations were Recto to Santolan but plans have also been undertaken to interconnect more parts of the city. Expansion is being rolled out in two parts namely the East Extension and the West Extension.

Just 2019, fire struck a portion of LRT-2 causing operations to be disrupted. Right now, trains can only travel from Recto to Cubao while the last two stations namely Santolan and Katipunan are still being repaired and operation is seen to resume once more in the mid-2020.

The East Extension covers 4 kilometers and adds two stations to the line. This extension is currently under construction and would connect Marikina City and Antipolo making the commute to Divisoria easier and decongesting Marcos Highway. This would accomodate an additional 80,000 passengers and cut the travel time from Manila to Antipolo fron 3 hours to 40 minutes.

The West Extension spans 3.02 kilometers and would connect the train line to the Manila North Harbor area in Tondo. There would be three additional stations namely - Tutuban PNR, Divisoria, and the North Port Passenger Terminal. Currently, it is under bidding process and is projected to begin in 2020 and be operational by 2023.

Metro Rail Transit 3 (MRT 3)
The MRT 3 began in 1999 and has 13 stations. It runs above EDSA from North Avenue to Taft Avenue which connects to LRT 1. This line connects Quezon City, Mandaluyong, Makati, and Pasay. It serves around 550,000 passengers daily and is operating beyond its maximum capacity of 350,000 passengers daily. This train line is the most problematic because it often suffers breakdowns and there are always long lines in stations and trains are always jampacked with people.

The trains used in this line are 16 trainsets purchased from Czech Republic. They run at a maximum seed of 30-40 kph, a lot slower than the set's maximum speed of 65 kph because of wornout tracks.

The train line is now undergoing a rehabilitation to deal with its operating beyond capacity and wornout tracks. Through this, the Department of Transportation is looking to increase the number of operating trains during rush hour from 15 to 20. These trains would run at a faster speed of 60 kph from the original 30 kph and would also reduce the wait time in between trains by half from 7 minutes to 3.5 minutes.

All tracks would be rehauled as well as the 72 light rail vehicles of the train line which would eb installed with new airconditioning units to improve passenger experience. Additional 48 Dalian train sets would also be rolled out to increase capacity and accomodate daily ridership. This project is gradually being rolled out with target completion date of July 2021.

Philippine National Railways (PNR)
The PNR line ran from Tutuban to Alabang and connected the cities of Manila, Makati, and Multinlupa. It was however extended recently all the way to Calamba to also ease travel from Laguna and the south to Metro Manila and vice versa.

Under the current administration, the PNR is also being rehabilitated with it getting newer train sets so that it can run at faster speeds and accomodate more commuters as well.

There have also been proposals on the construction of a railway that would connect New Clark City to Metro Manila thereby increasing economic activity in Clark.

Talks have also began for the revival of the Manila-Bicol Line once more. Originally it had 7 trips per day but the route was abandoned due to damaged tracks. Now the administration is looking to buy 21 Chinese trains to ply the route Calamba, Laguna to Legaspi, Albay. This would reduce travel time from Manila to Albay by 80%.

Other Railways Under Construction
Aside from these 4 train lines, more lines are in the works. Lines 4-11 are under development and are seen to add to our railway stock seen.

Overall, with our current railway systems undergoing rehabilitation and more lines being constructed, commuting should be made more comfortable and convenient in the near future. This would contribute in the long run to less traffic in the metro.