LRTA thumbs down additional station in Caloocan

Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) Administrator Melquiades Robles said yesterday a proposal to build an additional station in Caloocan City as part of the LRT-Metro Rail Transit (MRT) loop project was not viable.

He said the additional station sought by Caloocan City residents to be built along EDSA in the Bagong Barrio area does not have a projected ridership to support the operations of the additional rail station, which would add P800 million to the P6.4-billion project.

“A study previously undertaken before the project was designed and bidded out showed that it would only result in losses of P200 million a year,” Robles said.

He added that building an additional station would involve a costly and time-consuming redesign of the project.

“This project is a priority project of President Arroyo and we are mindful of attaining our project completion target so redesigning and looking for additional funds to finance the added costs would drastically affect our time schedules,” Robles pointed out.

Robles issued the statement after a reported 2,000 residents from Bagong Barrio staged a rally along EDSA in Caloocan City Monday urging the national government to put up an intermediary LRT station in the area.

The loop project entails the construction of three stations from Monumento in Caloocan City and North Avenue in Quezon City that would connect the LRT Line 1 and the MRT. – Rainier Allan Ronda