Dante Velasco, DOTC Undersecretary for Public Information, said that the LRT Line 1 and MRT interconnection was one of the projects being studied by the department for immediate implementation that will improve transportation in the metropolis.
Velasco said the DOTC was also considering placing the LRT Lines 1 and 2, and the EDSA-bound MRT under one management, which would be the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA). “We want to put the two rail lines under one management,” Velasco told The Star in an interview the other day.
DOTC insiders who spoke on condition of anonymity said that placing the MRT under the LRTA would be a welcome move since it would allow DOTC through the LRTA to check the huge maintenance cost of the EDSA-bound railway which is said to cost more than $2 million or P92 million a month under its long time Japanese maintenance contractor TES Philippines.
The more than $2 million maintenance contract for the MRT, which is bedeviled by regular daily operation disruptions, proves expensive considering that the 30-year-old LRT Line 1’s maintenance contract is only P35 million a month while the LRT Line 2 is P22 million a month.
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The DOTC had earlier conducted a successful compatibility test run between LRT Lines 1 and MRT, which showed that the trains of the LRT Line 1’s trains can run onto the MRT rail tracks and get its power supply from the MRT’s power cables.
Two “structural gauge test” conducted in February by the technical consultant for the MRT-LRT “Closing the Loop” project, Metrolink, found that the LRT Line 1’s trains can run smoothly from its current end-station in Monumento, Caloocan City, straight through the four stations of the MRT-LRT link and into the rail tracks of the MRT at its northend station at North Avenue.
Metro Manila in color
Despite the compatibility test results, the DOTC, under its former chief Leandro Mendoza, had been reluctant to go ahead with the interconnection of the two rail lines. It will be recalled that the Closing the Loop project station and railway construction was finished by contractor First Balfour-DMCI consortium last January.
The Closing the Loop project has connected the LRT Line 1 and the MRT at the former’s Monumento station in Caloocan and the latter’s North Avenue station in Quezon City through an entirely elevated railway spanning a 5.4-km. stretch of EDSA.
The interconnection of the two lines will allow seamless travel all over Metro Manila through the LRT Line 1, the LRT Line 2, and the EDSA-bound MRT.
The project included the construction of three rail stations at the Balintawak interchange, Roosevelt Avenue and North Avenue. - By Rainier Allan Rond
