LRT-Cavite construction to start in October 2018

MANILA, Philippines — Construction of the Light Rail Transit Line 1 Cavite extension is expected to start later this year.

“We’re ready to do it starting October this year,” Light Rail Manila Corp. (LRMC) president and chief executive officer Juan Alfonso said on Wednesday.

The LRMC is the operator of the LRT 1. It is composed of the Metro Pacific Light Rail Corp., which is owned by the Metro Pacific Investments Corp.; AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp. of the Ayala Corp., and the Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings (Philippines) Pte. Ltd. of the Philippine Investment Alliance for Infrastructure.

The LRMC won the contract for the LRT-Cavite extension project during the previous administration.

The project involves extending the LRT-1, which currently covers the Roosevelt station in Quezon City to the Baclaran station in Pasay City.

The Cavite train system will give rise to eight new stations – Redemptorist, NAIA Avenue, Asia World, Ninoy Aquino and Dr. Santos stations in Parañaque, Las Piñas and Zapote stations in Las Piñas City, and Niog station in Bacoor.

Once completed, the LRT-Cavite will serve from 700,000 to 800,000 passengers per day.

It is also expected to decongest traffic in Metro Manila.

As of the first quarter of this year, the LRT-1 had an average daily ridership of 459,400 passengers.

“Travel time from Baclaran to Bacoor is currently at one and a half hours a day during rush hour on the average. We can bring that down to only 30 minutes,” Alfonso said.

He said travel time from Baclaran to Sucat would be cut down to only 15 minutes, and 20 minutes for Baclaran to Zapote.

The project could save passengers around three hours of travel time per day.

“You don’t have to wake up at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. to be in Manila for work because you know the train will be there every three and a half minutes and travel time is predictable,” Alfonso said.

Since the LRMC took over the operation of the LRT-1, it has spent P7.5 billion for the maintenance of the train system.