It seems MRT-3 stations are becoming potential death traps as dangerous crowd control practices are now being used to “manage” the increasing volumes of passengers using the line. As seen in the following photo, passengers are made to queue on stairs leading to the train platforms packed like sardines.
The photo was posted by a certain Donna Miranda on the DOTC-MRT3 Facebook page…
As you can see commuters waiting to board the arriving train on EDSA-Taft Station have barely any space to breathe or move while the platform remains wide open. As your passenger, as someone patronising your services for the last 12 years I think I deserve to be heard if not acknowledge or at the minimum be treated with the right kind of respect any customer deserves. As I have pointed out in my previous post that you had taken down, this is unsafe. Consider the possibility of any of these commuters having heart attack, hypertension, or simply being squished by raging crowd, how shall we attend to them when there is barely any space to move. Also consider the possibility of children being squished and pregnant women who may go into premature labor because of all the pushing.
Another photo, exhibited on Miranda’s profile provides a clearer picture of how passengers are restrained from making their way onto the platforms before the trains arrive.
Miranda later posts another photo on her personal profile showing further passenger grief as the “social experiment”, this time at Ayala Station, progresses.
As expected, today has gotten far worse. The cordoned area are for where male passengers need to ‘line up’ that is squeeze themselves into. Meanwhile women passengers are allowed to pass thru the ropes only to be greeted by another round of bottleneck congestion (as in the photo from the other day). 3rd day of MRT3 new social experiment. Also the train we rode around 6:30pm was defective so we were offloaded to join the other crowd of already frustrated commuters at Ayala Station.
The Manila Metro Rail Transit System Line 3 (MRT-3) is Metro Manila’s third rapid transit line. It forms part of the regional passenger rail system, which includes the Manila Light Rail Transit System Line 1, Manila Light Rail Transit System Line 2 and the Philippine National Railways commuter line. The line operates under the name Metrostar Express, and is colored blue (old) and yellow (new) on rail maps. The line is located along the Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA), one of Metro Manila’s main thoroughfares. It has thirteen stations along its 16.95 km track which passes through the cities of Makati, Mandaluyong, Pasay and Quezon City. While originally intended to decongest EDSA, the MRT-3 has been only partially successful in decongesting EDSA, and congestion is further aggravated by the rising number of motor vehicles. The expansion of the system to cover the entire stretch of EDSA is expected to contribute to current attempts to decongest the thoroughfare and to cut travel times.
Opened in 1999, the MRT-3 is operated by the Metro Rail Transit Corporation (MRTC), a private company operating in partnership with the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) under a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) agreement. Although it has characteristics of light rail, such as the type of rolling stock used, it is more akin to a rapid transit system.
[NB: Parts of this article were lifted off Wikipedia.org and used in accordance with that site’s Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License consistent with the same license applied by Get Real Post to its content. Facebook pages and profiles from which photos in this article were sourced were publicly accessible at the time of their publication here.]
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27 Comments on "Manila’s Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT-3) stations: Disasters waiting to happen?"
The Leaders have no short-term, or long-term plans in our transportation system. They simply sit on their asses, and collected their good pay; at our expense.
Did they ever learn an “honest day” work?
A disaster waiting to happen? How ’bout a disaster in motion practice and everyday occurrence?
What a mess.
This is an example of what keeps foreigners(businessmen/tourists et al) staying away from the entire city, have an experience like the ones pictured and who would be insane enough to ever come back for more of the same or worse?
Again, what a mess.
Actually, Metro Manila seems to be the real problem. The metro, with 16 municipalities the last time I checked, is a political mess. They never seem to be able to work together, and consequently, believe it or not, they make the rest of the country look inept. Their respective administrations never give us the impression that they want the metro to be a more citizen-friendly place. Isn’t that just bad politics? Screw them.
Cant’t blame MRT 3 management. That is how you handle undisciplined pinoys. Leave them be on their own accord and they will mess things up. They need to be restrained in some way. The restrictive nature of the MRT3 management with the passengers is representative of how to get pinoys to move the Philippines forward, like a herd of sheep. Most importantly put a good shepherd to move the herd and not an imbecile.
I agree with this. People are going to find ways to jump the queue, if they can get away with it.
It’s just horse shit that they didn’t invest in getting more trains all this time.
you can only pack so many trains on the line. do you think you can pack 50 trains on that single line all at the same time? even half that number at the same time is a bigger disaster waiting to happen. train collision anyone? sheesh!
I’m surprised they actually had something like that. I was wondering what the ropes were for when I arrived at Taft Avenue Station earlier.
No such thing as a queue here in the Philippines. Even if you get there first, you’ll probably end up last if you don’t force yourself to the front.
The formula for disaster? All it takes is one panic stampede… one terrorist attack, a heckler shouting a false alarm or one accident.
Malamang nga mas marami pa ang mamamatay sa stampede/hysteria kesa sa bomba mismo o lindol kapag nangyari yon.
kahit naman nasa baba mga tao eh. pag pinag isipan mong maigi, kahit saang enclosed space naman eh ganun din pag may stampede.
This. Seriously. I’ve been saying this all along. Stampede na lang ang kulang.
I dont think MRT stations are designed for massive volume of passengers.Buying more trains and extending the operating hours will probably lessen the burden of its passengers. But of course they should raise the fare. Since majority of its users are working, i dont see anything wrong with MRT raising its fare.
additional trains? probably not. like i said in an earlier post – you can only put so many trains in one line. the more trains you put in, the higher the chance for collision.
longer operational hours – yes.
I’d rather wake up very early in the morning and ride a bus to work than to experience that type of hell. Never again.
Thankfully, our company allows us to come to work from 11 AM to 9 PM, at least I won’t face hour long traffic.
Of course, I’ll rather come 8 AM and leave 5 PM to be with my family, yet the current traffice situation does not allow it 🙁
It’s been a while since I have seen an NHL game up close and personal but last time I rode the MRT during rush hour I got more than my fill of cross checking, boarding, high sticking, elbowing and third man in. I can guarantee you that John Kordic, Tim Hunter, Bob Probert, Dale Hunter and Richard Zemlak are more cordial than your typical MRT commuter.
It’s times like that when you’ll be wishing to be put in the penalty box for as long as possible.
Considering that stairs are primarily designed for movement (and thus structurally designed for MOVING LOADS) we can only wonder if that stairway is already being pushed to its limits. Yes, one specific scenario of a disaster waiting to happen.
Disasters that may happen if this would continue, will be a riot, stampede, and the most likely will be a derailing of the trains.
I’m from the Northern province and recently I went to the Metro, particularly in Ortigas to report to our Main Office. It took me 3 hours from Balintawak Toll plaza to Ortigas. Because the Bus is dodging pedestrians. And as we past stations of MRT, there is more than a kilometer long of passengers in Line.
@ Jed, its good to hear your comment! Instead of cursing the darkness, you lit a candle. Not like many others who can only bitch and complain.
AND your are right, it never should have gotten so bad to begin with and this is but a bandaid on a gunshot wound. The Management needs some people who are real engineers and professionals to do their planning.