Manila Light Rail Transit System
The Manila Light Rail Transit System, commonly known as the LRT, is an urban rail transit system that primarily serves Metro Manila, Philippines. Although categorized as a light rail system because it originally used light rail vehicles, it presently has characteristics of a rapid transit system, such as high passenger throughput, exclusive right-of-way, and later use of full metro rolling stock. The LRT is jointly-operated by the Light Rail Transit Authority, a government corporation attached to the Department of Transportation, and the Light Rail Manila Corporation. Along with the Manila Metro Rail Transit System and the Metro Commuter Line of the Philippine National Railways, the system makes up Metro Manila's rail infrastructure.
The LRT's is mostly elevated and consists of two lines and 38 stations. Line 1, also called the Green Line, opened in 1984 and travels a north–south route. Line 2, the Blue Line, was completed in 2004 and runs east–west. The original Line 1 was built as a no-frills means of public transport and lacks some features and comforts, but the newer Line 2 has been built with additional standards and criteria in mind like barrier-free access. In 2024, the system served 470,000 passengers on average. Security guards at each station conduct inspections and provide assistance. A reusable plastic magnetic ticketing system has replaced the previous token-based system in 2001, and the Flash Pass was introduced as a step towards a more integrated transportation system. In 2015, the plastic magnetic tickets were replaced with the Beep, a contactless smart card, introduced to provide a common ticketing to 3 rail lines and some bus lines.
Many passengers who ride the system also take various forms of road-based public transport, such as buses and jeepneys, to and from a station to reach their intended destination. Although it aims to reduce traffic congestion and travel times in the metropolis, the transportation system has only been partially successful due to the rising number of motor vehicles and rapid urbanization. The network's expansion is set on resolving this problem.
Network
The network consists of two lines: the original Line 1 or Green Line, and the more modern Line 2, or Purple Line. Line 1 is aligned in a general north–south direction along over of fully elevated track. From Monumento it runs south above the hustle and bustle of Rizal and Taft Avenues along grade-separated concrete viaducts allowing exclusive right-of-way before ending in Dr. Santos. A three-station east–west extension along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue that will connect Monumento to the North Avenue station was opened in 2010, although the common station is still under construction. Including the extension's two recently opened stations, Balintawak and Roosevelt, Line 1 has twenty stations. Line 2 consists of thirteen stations in a general east–west direction over of mostly elevated track, with one station lying underground. Commencing in Recto, the line follows a corridor defined by Claro M. Recto and Legarda Avenues, Ramon Magsaysay and Aurora Boulevard, and the Marikina-Infanta Highway before reaching the other end of the line at Antipolo. The system passes through the cities of Caloocan, Manila, Marikina, Pasay, Pasig, Quezon City, and San Juan.During peak hours, Line 1 fields 30 trains at most; the time interval between the departure of one and the arrival of another, called headway, is a minimum of 3–4 minutes. On January 9, 2009, Line 1 fielded 31 trains with a headway of 2 minutes to service devotees in celebration of the Feast of the Black Nazarene. Line 2 on the other hand, runs 10 trains at most with a minimum headway of 5 minutes. With the proper upgrades, Line 1 is designed to potentially run with headway as low as 1.5 minutes. Line 2 can run with headway as low as 2 minutes with throughput of up to 60,000 passengers per hour per direction.
In conjunction with the Line 3—also known as the new Yellow Line, a similar but separate metro rail system formerly owned by the private Metro Rail Transit Corporation until 2025—the system provides the platform for the vast majority of rail travel in the Metro Manila area. Together with the PNR, the three constitute the SRTS. Recto and Doroteo Jose serve as the sole interchange between both lines of the LRTA. Araneta Center-Cubao and EDSA stations serve as interchanges between the LRT and the MRT networks. To transfer lines, passengers will need to exit from the station they are in then pass through covered walkways connecting the stations. Blumentritt station meanwhile is immediately above its PNR counterpart.
, Central Terminal, and are Line 1's three terminal stations; Recto, Araneta Center-Cubao, and Antipolo are the terminal stations on Line 2. All of them are located on or near major transport routes where passengers can take other forms of transportation such as privately run buses and jeepneys to reach their ultimate destination both within Metro Manila and in neighboring provinces. The system has two depots: Line 1 uses the Pasay Depot at LRTA headquarters in Pasay, near Baclaran station, while the Line 2 uses the Santolan Depot built by Sumitomo in Pasig.
Both lines are open every day of the year from 4:30 am PST until 10:15 pm on weekdays, and from 5:00 am until 9:50 pm on weekends, except when changes have been announced. During Holy Week, a public holiday in the Philippines, the rail system is closed for annual maintenance, owing to fewer commuters and traffic around the metro, with normal operations resuming after Easter Sunday. During the Christmas season, operating hours are usually extended on the days leading up to Christmas Day, but are shortened on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve to allow its staff to celebrate the holidays with their families. Notice of special schedules is given through press releases, via the public address system in every station, and on the LRTA and LRMC websites.
History
Early train system (1878–1945)
The system's roots date back to 1878 when an official from Spain's Department of Public Works for the Philippines submitted a proposal for a Manila streetcar system. The system proposed was a five-line network emanating from Plaza San Gabriel in Binondo, running to Intramuros, Malate, Malacañan Palace, Sampaloc and Tondo. The project was approved and in 1882, Spanish-German businessman Jacobo Zóbel de Zangroniz, Spanish engineer Luciano M. Bremon, and Spanish banker Adolfo Bayo, founded the Compañia de los Tranvias de Filipinas to operate the concession granted by the Spanish colonial government. The Malacañan Palace line was later replaced with a line linking Manila to Malabon, and construction began in 1885. Four German-made steam-operated locomotives and eight coaches for nine passengers each, composed the initial assets of the company. The Manila-Malabon line was the first line of the new system to be finished, opening to the public on October 20, 1888, with the rest of the network opening in 1889. From the beginning it proved to be a very popular line, with services originating from Tondo as early as 5:30 a.m. and ending at 7:30 p.m., while trips from Malabon were from 6:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m., every hour on the hour in the mornings, and every half-hour beginning at 1:30 p.m.With the American takeover of the Philippines, the Philippine Commission allowed the Manila Electric Railroad and Light Company to take over the properties of the Compañia de los Tranvias de Filipinas, with the first of twelve mandated electric tranvia lines operated by MERALCO opening in Manila in 1905. At the end of the first year around of track had been laid. A five-year reconstruction program was initiated in 1920, and by 1924, 170 cars serviced many parts of the city and its outskirts. Although it was an efficient system for the city's 220,000 inhabitants, by the 1930s the streetcar network had stopped expanding.
Post-war (1945–1977)
The system was closed during World War II. By the war's end, the tram network was damaged beyond repair amid a city that lay in ruins. It was dismantled and jeepneys became the city's primary form of transportation, plying the routes once served by the tram lines. With the return of buses and cars to the streets, traffic congestion became a problem.In 1966, the Philippine government granted a franchise to Philippine Monorail Transport Systems for the operation of an inner-city monorail. The monorail's feasibility was still being evaluated when the government asked the Japan International Cooperation Agency to conduct a separate transport study. Prepared between 1971 and 1973, the JICA study proposed a series of circumferential and radial roads, an inner-city rapid transit system, a commuter railway, and an expressway with three branches. After further examination, many recommendations were adopted; however, none of them involved rapid transit and the monorail was never built. PMTS' franchise subsequently expired in 1974.
Another study was performed between 1976 and 1977, this time by Freeman Fox and Associates and funded by the World Bank. It originally suggested a street-level railway, but its recommendations were revised by the newly formed Ministry of Transportation and Communications. The ministry instead called for an elevated system because of the city's many intersections. However, the revisions increased the price of the project from ₱1.5 billion to ₱2 billion. A supplementary study was conducted and completed within three months.
Advent of Line 1 (1977–2003)
President Ferdinand Marcos created the Light Rail Transit Authority on July 12, 1980, by virtue of Executive Order No. 603 giving birth to what was then dubbed the "Metrorail". First Lady Imelda Marcos, then governor of Metro Manila and minister of human settlements, became its first chairman. Although responsible for the operations of the system, the LRTA primarily confined itself to setting and regulating fares, planning extensions and determining rules and policies, leaving the day-to-day operations to a sister company of Meralco called the Meralco Transit Organization. Initial assistance for the project came in the form of a ₱300 million soft loan from the Belgian government, with an additional ₱700 million coming from a consortium of companies comprising SA Ateliers de Constructions Electriques de Charleroi and BN Constructions Ferroviaires et Métalliques, Tractionnel Engineering International and Transurb Consult. Although expected to pay for itself from revenues within twenty years of the start of operation, it was initially estimated that the system would lose money until at least 1993. For the first year of operation, despite a projected ₱365 million in gross revenue, losses of ₱216 million were thought likely.Construction of Line 1 started in September 1981 with the Construction and Development Corporation of the Philippines as the contractor with assistance from Losinger & Cie, a Swiss firm, and the Philippine subsidiary of the U.S.-based Dravo Corporation. The government appointed Electrowatt Engineering Services of Zürich to oversee construction and eventually became responsible for the extension studies of future expansion projects. The Electrowatt plan—which is still used for planning future metro lines—consisted of a network of rapid transit lines spanning all major corridors within 20 years, including a line on the Radial Road 6 alignment, one of the region's busiest road corridor.
The 1982 study of the system's network recommends lines that are proposed:
- A first line will connect Baclaran and Monumento, although it is then still under construction.
- A second line would connect Recto to Aurora Boulevard.
- More lines that would run along EDSA, Quezon Boulevard, Quezon Avenue, Santa Mesa, Shaw Boulevard, and Gil Puyat Avenue.
For the next few years Line 1 operations ran smoothly. In 2000, however, employees of METRO Inc. went on strike, paralyzing Line 1 operations from July 25 to August 2, 2000. Consequently, the LRTA did not renew its operating contract with METRO Inc. that expired on July 31, 2000, and assumed all operational responsibility. At around 12:15 pm on December 30, 2000, a bomb—later learned to have been planted by Islamic terrorists—went off in the front coach of a Line 1 train pulling into Blumentritt station, killing 11 and injuring over 60 people in the most devastating of a series of attacks that day, now known as the Rizal Day bombings.