Ref.: Anna Ferrer / Mariecar Jara-Puyod
6473452 / 6473491 local 29846
May 18, 2004
The Light Rail Transit Authority yesterday announced the temporary suspension of its operations for three consecutive Sundays of its Purple Line or Line 2.
LRTA Administrator Pacifico Fajardo said that the suspension was arrived at to complete and fine tune the system.
"Our Line 2 will not have Sunday operations on May 23, May 30 and June 6 because we want to improve all the technical and operational settings needed of the entire system prior to the opening of classes on June 7," he said.
Line 2 or the Purple Line is the newest mass rail system in Metro Manila spanning 13.8 kms from Santolan, Pasig City to the University belt on C.M. Recto Avenue in Legarda, Manila.
Operational since April 5, 2003 from Santolan to Cubao, Quezon City, its phase 2, covering six stations namely Betty Go-Belmonte and Gilmore (Quezon City), J. Ruiz (San Juan), as well as V. Mapa, Pureza and Legarda (Manila), was opened a year later.
Recto Station will be operational late this year. The decision to temporarily suspend operations for three Sundays was reached by the LRTA, upon the recommendation of Purple Line operations and maintenance officer-in-charge Engr. Ed San Juan.
San Juan said: "The management of LRT 2 pushed for the completion of all the testings needed and outstanding works, prior to the opening of classes this June. We want our system to be seamless and our operations, smoothened up."
He added that since Phase 2 has been available to the public, ridership has zoomed from 18,000 passengers a day to 48,000 a day.
Except for Holy Week when operations was suspended for five days, total ridership for the whole month of April was 701,714 from 377,085 in March.
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