REGION | LRT-1 Cavite extension set

AYALAS LEAD LRT-1 DOROTEO JOSE STATION LAUNCH: (From left) Fernando Zobel De Ayala, Jaime Augusto Zobel De Ayala, Rep. Cesar Sarmiento of the House committee on transportation, Metro Pacific Investments Corp. president Joey Lim, Rep. Jhon Nieto, Light Rail Manila Corp. president Rogelio Singson, and Light Rail Transit Authority administrator Reynaldo Berroya during the launch of the new LRT-1 Doroteo Jose Station in Sta. Cruz, Manila yesterday. MIKE AMOROSO

MANILA, Philippines - The Light Rail Manila Corp.(LRMC) expects to break ground for the LRT-1 extension by the end of February or early March.

“As committed, we are ready to hold groundbreaking by late February or early March,” LRMC president and CEO Rogelio Singson said during the inauguration of the newly improved Doroteo Jose station yesterday.

LRMC, which is composed of Metro Pacific Investments Corp.’s Metro Pacific Light Rail Corp., Ayala Corp.’s AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp., and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings (Philippines) PTE Ltd., was awarded the P65-billion public-private partnership (PPP) project to operate, maintain and extend the train system.

Under the contract for the PPP project, the LRT-1 which runs from Roosevelt station in Quezon City to Baclaran station in Pasay City will be extended to Bacoor in Cavite.

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Covering 11.7 kilometers (km), the extension would involve putting up new stations across Pasay City, Paranaque City, Las Piñas City and Cavite. The new stations are: Aseana, Manila International Airport, Asia World, Ninoy Aquino, Dr. Santos, Las Pinas, Zapote and Niyog.

Construction of the extension would be done in phases and LRMC will start with the first phase which covers six km.

While LRMC has yet to secure notice to proceed with construction of the extension from the government, Singson said the consortium has already received a permit to enter the site.

With the permit to enter, he said LRMC could already fence the area to prevent informal settlers from coming in, as well as start engineering work.

Prior to the start of construction of extension, LRMC has started undertaking improvements on the train line.

In particular, it has completed the first phase of the P500 million station improvement project which involves upgrading the LRT-1 stations.