Why Philippines’ Trains Were Designed to Fail

If you have ever tried to get across Metro Manila during rush hour or during a sudden tropical downpour, you already know the reality of the city. The roads lock up, the traffic comes to a standstill, and travel times become completely unpredictable. But if you look above the gridlock, you will see something entirely different. You will see trains moving. For decades, Metro Manila's rail system has given the city something the road network often cannot provide, separation. The trains are lifted above traffic, meaning they are not directly trapped inside the same gridlock, intersections, and flooded streets as cars, buses, and jeepneys. This layer of separation was the system's first major evolution. A 1976 to 1977 World Bank-funded study initially suggested building a street-level railway for the capital. However, planners quickly realized that if the trains were on the street, they would get stuck in the exact same chaotic intersections as the cars. So, the plan was revised into an elevated system. Construction started in October 1981, and the first section of Line 1 opened to the public on December 1st, 1984, becoming Southeast Asia's first light rail transit system. This was eventually followed by MRT-3 over EDSA and the heavier capacity LRT-2. If you pull up a map of Metro Manila today, the active urban rail network is essentially drawn in three bold strokes. The first stroke is LRT-3, the north-south spine. It runs from Fernando Poe Jr. Station in the north all the way down to Dr. Santos in the south, [music] cutting through some of the oldest and most crowded corridors of Metro Manila to link Quezon City, Caloocan, Manila, Pasay, and Parañaque. The second stroke is MRT-3, the EDSA spine. This is perhaps the most infamous line. It curves along Metro Manila's busiest highway, EDSA, and serves as the main commuter conveyor belt to several of the capital's major business districts. The third stroke is LRT 2, the East-West Spine. Cutting directly across the other two lines, it stretches from Recto in the dense city center out to Antipolo in the east. It is a heavier, wider train line built specifically to move massive crowds from the eastern suburbs into the city's university and commercial belts. Together, these three lines form the current active rail backbone.