At a glacial pace
That today is a weekend probably offers a measure of relief, however small, to hundreds of thousands of commuters who use the Metro Rail Transit 3. This is not even a new story—everyone we know has experienced a horror story at some point—except that this week the train ran much more slowly than before, nullifying the reason people would prefer a train over some other mode of transportation.
The Transportation Department apologized Thursday for the inconvenience caused by the MRT’s inconceivable speed of 20 kilometers per hour—some swear it was slower than that. The axel in one of the bogeys was found broken, officials said, and it would be better to run the very few trains at low speed rather than risk derailment.
Meanwhile, the government has advised commuters against taking the MRT during rush hour, deploying some 80 buses on Edsa instead. This was also to avoid the kilometric lines in train stations.
A transport official said they would much rather accept commuters cursing at the department instead of seeing people sustaining injuries or dying.
On Friday, however, there were reports of passengers getting hurt due to a running train suddenly stopping, giving lie to the claim that passenger safety was top priority.
The MRT problem has become so commonplace that reports of malfunction very rarely make it to the news anymore. This is not enough reason to slack off about it, however.
It has been nearly a year since a new administration took over. Granted that the root causes of the problem took place during a different era, one year is sufficient time to have come up with solutions and prevent further damage from happening.
Unfortunately for commuters, the weekend only offers a respite. Come Monday, they will again have to brave the rails going to their schools or workplaces—and heaven help them with whatever new misadventures they encounter along the way.
Improvements in public transport have been slow in coming. We cross our fingers that plans to make the train system better are not delayed any further, or worse, derailed altogether.
