Train behind the thrown

All of a sudden, the erratic Department of Transportation and Communications was changing its plan to build the common station for light rail transits MRT 3 (Edsa line) and LRT 1 (Taft-Rizal-Edsa line) at the mall called SM City North.

According to Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya, the department already changed its mind, and it wanted to build the “common” station in front of Trinoma, a mall owned by the Ayala group.

At the same time, the vacillating DOTC also loved to change its reasons for the abrupt change of heart.

At first, the DOTC reportedly wanted to avoid what Abaya called “urban blight” which, he said, would result from building the “common” station at the SM City North, as if the same would not be true in building the station in front of the Ayala-owned Trinoma.

Sure, Metro Manila has always been the most aesthetically pleasing city in the whole wide world.

Really now, when did the Aquino (Part II) administration bother with things like urban planning?
Apparently realizing the frivolity of its reasoning, the DOTC subsequently sang a different tune, this time about the Trinoma location giving the DOTC huge untold savings.

Well and good: The issue quickly turned to something about money. As it turned out, the DOTC computed—on its own, without any public scrutiny—that the SM City North station would cost some P2.1 billion and the Trinoma station, only some P1.4 billion.

Let us give the DOTC the benefit of the doubt, and let us say it was all about urban planning and financing. Question: Did the DOTC even consider the convenience of the hundreds of thousands of people riding the light rail transits?

From our end, the DOTC seemed to be using smoke and mirrors to hide some things that our dear Abaya simply forgot to say regarding the project, such as the DOTC’s utter disregard of the commuters.

After years and years of surveys and technical studies, several government agencies finally approved in 2009—yes, about five years ago—the plan to build the common station at the SM City North mall.

They included the Neda (with its Investment Coordinating Council), DOTC, Light Rail Transit Authority, Department of Public Works and Highways and Metro Manila Development Authority.

The plan was also approved by the private sector, through various business organizations, and even by proponents of another train line, the MRT 7, which would build its station at the same SM mall.

Diggings already started for the LRT 1 posts for the station at the SM City North on the basis of the approval of the plan by those government agencies years ago, although work suddenly stopped for some mysterious reasons.

It turned out that the Neda board wanted to “review” the plan, and we all know that the Neda board was chaired by our dear leader, Benigno Simeon, aka BS, and so it seemed that the DOTC moves were directed by somebody in the Palace.

Like it or not, the big part of the DOTC equation was that the owner of Trinoma was the Ayala group, known in business to have deep connections in the Aquino (Part II) administration, perhaps even directly with our leader, BS.

In the real estate business, the SM and Ayala groups have been known to be on a collision course. The SM group for instance initiated a project in Bacolod City as an “unsolicited proposal” that Ayala was subsequently able to snatch away from SM.

The same happened in the reclamation project in Pasay City, which was already awarded to SM when Ayala protested, claiming that it got to know about the project only a few days before the bidding, as if it was everybody else’s fault that Ayala was sleeping on the job.

In the past five years, SM was also building its “Aura” mall at Fort Bonifacio, a development project of Ayala which, perhaps, also escaped the attention of Ayala boys.

In other words, the pattern seemed to be that SM would come up with a project and then, Ayala, by some mysterious force, would simply grab it.

Regarding the common station on Edsa, SM, in 2009, signed an agreement with LRTA to build its station at the SM City North mall, even giving a grant of P200 million to LRTA.

Thus, the DOTC started its technical plans and studies on the common station in front of the SM mall, until the DOTC suddenly talked about the magic savings of P1 billion by simply changing the site to Trinoma.

The DOTC perhaps forgot to include certain factors in its cost computation.

Under the five-year-old DOTC plan, the SM station would bundle up “three” stations and they would be those of the existing LRT 1 and MRT 3, and the prospective MRT 7 (between Tala in Caloocan and North Avenue).

The SM station would connect those three train lines in one station—in one concourse, which should be the set-up most convenient to the hundreds of thousands of commuters.
Thus, the commuters would just walk a short distance from one train ride to another.

In comparison, the Trinoma station would not really be a “common” station, because the DOTC would have to build the LRT 1 station right beside the existing MRT 3 station.

To connect those two stations to the MRT 7 station, the DOTC would have to build a long “walkalator” which, based on the estimate of the LRTA, would cost about P200 million and the MRT 7 station, some P500 million.

Where in the world could be the “saving” that the DOTC was talking about between Trinoma’s having two train lines and SM’s three lines. The DOTC is comparing two different projects with separate specifications.

In its insistence to change the site of the “common” station, the DOTC would have to face the issue of safety. In fact, it took the DOTC quite some time—and money, of course—for technical studies on the so-called turn back, an area where trains could maneuver to change directions.

Where would the “turn back” be more practical and safe for the riding public, at the SM or at the Trinoma sites? It was obvious from the start that the Trinoma location had insufficient space for the MRT 3 turn back.

Another problem is that the Trinoma location, with its limited space, could be the future “depot” for LRT 1. The authorities have been insisting on the depot as safety measure in cases of train malfunction. Without the depot, the whole system would be paralyzed. What would happen then to the thousands of hapless commuters?

It seems the DOTC would need a more detailed scrutiny of its plan: Which between the SM and the Trinoma sites would be more beneficial to the government in reality.

And if it is not too much to ask, let us not forget the riding public, which is usually thrown aside in any of these train issues. –Conrado Banal, Philippine Daily Inquirer

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