LRT-2 to take Sundays off

The Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 2 will be closed to the riding public for three consecutive Sundays starting May 23 for "fine-tuning" work, the LRT Authority (LRTA) said yesterday.

Pacifico Fajardo, LRTA administrator, said the suspension of the line’s operations on May 23, May 30 and June 6, is being done to complete and fine tune the system in preparation for the opening of classes on June 7.

"Our line will not have Sunday operations on May 23 and 30 and June 6 because we want to improve all the technical and operational settings needed of the entire system prior to the opening of classes on June 7," he said in a statement.

Line 2 operations manager engineer Ed San Juan had ordered the closure of the line for three Sundays to complete all the testing needed and finish all the outstanding works prior to the school opening.

"We want our system to be seamless and our operations smoothened," he said.

LRT Line 2 now runs from Santolan in Pasig City to Legarda in downtown Manila right at the heart of the city’s University Belt after the opening of the Cubao to Legarda stretch of the line last April.

In October, the LRTA hopes that its terminal in Manila on C.M. Recto Avenue will be operational, finishing the entire 13.8-kilometer span of LRT Line 2.

After the opening of the six stations under the Phase 2 package of the rail line construction project last April, the LRTA said the ridership of the rail line had zoomed up from 377,085 last March to 701,714 in April.

Before the opening of the six Phase 2 stations, the line only had four stations running, namely: the Santolan, Katipunan, Anonas and Cubao stations.

Fajardo said that they expect another jump this June when classes open and that the rail line is further used to the maximum in view of its straddling the extremely traffic congested Aurora Boulevard-Magsaysay Boulevard-Legarda corridor.