Riders complain: MRT now an 'obstacle course'

MANILA, Philippines -   Regular riders of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) are complaining about the bad condition of the rail line, which has made each trip an “obstacle course.”

MRT regulars said escalators and elevators at key stations – Quezon Avenue, GMA-Kamuning, Ayala and Pasay Taft – frequently break down, there are long queues to buy tickets, crowded stations that become even more so at rush hours, and the jampacked coaches make the facility unfriendly to hundreds of “differently abled” and elderly people, for whom a special coach is allotted on each trip.

The MRT is still being maintained by Japanese contractor TES Philippines, which is paid $1.4 million a month by the MRT Corp. to maintain the line. The maintenance contract expired in mid-2010 but has been extended by the MRTC and the Department of Transportation and Communications due to the repeated failure to conduct a public bidding for the contract.

Lawyer Hernando Cabrera, Light Rail Transit Authority spokesman, said LRTA administrator Rafael Rodriguez, also a lawyer, had already taken note of the mounting complaints over the broken-down escalators and elevators as well as the “out of order” toilets at the MRT and the Light Rail Transit Lines 1 and 2.