Tokyo Metro: Revive MM subway project, fix MRT3

The recently revived Metro Manila Subway Project has gained another supporter in Japan’s Tokyo Metro Company, Ltd.

Atsushi Kamimura, Tokyo Metro’s manager for demand generation and marketing, said that it was high time for the Philippines to push through with the P374.5-billion subway project that links the cities of Makati, Pasay, and Taguig in an article published on social news website Rappler.

Kamimura, however, stressed that the government has to improve the aging MRT3 first before it pursues any plans of a subway. He cited safety issues particularly during rush hour, saying the interval between trains should be around two minutes as well as the MRT being “too dark”.

Tokyo Metro may not have any plans yet of participating in infrastructure projects in the country, but the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) earlier said they were keen on helping finance the construction of the same Subway System. JICA is the same organization that released a report in 2014 on how the country has been P2.4 billion a day because of congestion in Metro Manila.

WOULD IT HAVE SOLVED CONGESTION? A map of what would have been the LRT Line 5. Image grabbed from Rappler.

The Makati-Pasay-Taguig Mass Transit System Loop, which would have been dubbed the LRT Line 5, was supposed to be a 12-kilometer underground train that would link three of Metro Manila’s major business districts.

It was shelved by the Aquino administration because of its massive cost and questions over right of way for overhead stations within the stretch of Bonifacio Global City. The project has since been revived by the Duterte administration “only because there was demand”, according to DOTr Undersecretary Noel Kintanar.

 

Source: Rappler, Philippine Daily Inquirer, The Philippine Star