THE DEPARTMENT of Transportation (DoTr) announced that the first phase of the Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT-1) Cavite extension, which will accommodate an additional 80,000 passengers daily, is set to open this month.

“Possibly Nov. 16, we are fixing it,” Transportation Secretary Jaime J. Bautista told reporters on Thursday. “In a way [it will help decongest] once we open the extension of the LRT-1,” he added.

The Light Rail Manila Corp. (LRMC), the private operator of LRT-1, confirmed this, saying the first phase of the extension adds a total of 6.2 kilometers from Pasay City to Parañaque City. The five new stations are Redemptorist–Aseana Station, MIA Road Station, PITX Station, Ninoy Aquino Avenue Station, and Dr. Santos (formerly Sucat) Station.

The first phase will cut travel time from Quezon City to Parañaque City to less than an hour.

At a press briefing in Malacañang, Enrico R. Benipayo, the newly appointed president and chief executive officer of LRMC, said that the fare for the entire LRT-1 route — from FPJ Station (formerly Roosevelt) in Quezon City to Baclaran Station in Pasay, including the last station of the Cavite extension Phase 1 — will be P45.

With the addition of five new stations, Mr. Benipayo said the current interval of around four minutes between trains will be maintained.

He said LRMC is also expecting to double its current passengers in the next five years. The average daily ridership of LRT-1 now stands at 323,000.

“We expect once we open this, we will be able to bump up the ridership by an additional 80,000. We’re anticipating after five years, we will be doubling the number of daily passengers, so that is in 2028 to around 650,000 average daily ridership,” he said.

The next phases, such as Phase 2 and Phase 3, are still being worked out as these will be financed via public-private partnership, Mr. Bautista said.

“We are working with LRMC. We are just looking at how we can resolve some issues, especially the right of way. Within next year, we should be able to finalize the schedule,” Mr. Bautista said, adding that the DoTr will try to address all issues within this administration.

To recall, in August the DoTr said the second and third phases of construction of the LRT-1 Cavite extension may begin by 2026 amid right-of-way acquisition issues.

LRMC is the joint venture of Ayala Corp., Metro Pacific Light Rail Corp., and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings (Philippines) Pte. Ltd. Metro Pacific Light Rail is a unit of Metro Pacific Investments Corp., which is one of three Philippine subsidiaries of Hong Kong’s First Pacific Co. Ltd., the others being PLDT Inc. and Philex Mining Corp.

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