MMDA chair: Subway doable despite floods

The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) is fully behind the plan of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) to construct a subway system to solve the perennial traffic problem in the metropolis.

“[Transportation] Secretary Jun Abaya’s proposal to have a subway in Metro Manila is well-founded. According to a recent study, the alignments of a subway can ferry 1.6 million passengers a day,” MMDA Chair Francis Tolentino told reporters on Thursday.

Abaya recently announced at the sidelines of the Philippines’ midyear economic briefing that the DOTC, along with the Department of Public Works and Highways, had been working with the Japan International Cooperation Agency to study the feasibility of an underground train system.

He said the subterranean railway would likely use a parallel alignment to Edsa, the connector of the north and south corridors of Metro Manila.

Tolentino noted that the subway should be connected to all transport hubs—central bus terminals and all airport terminals—in addition to business districts and areas where many schools are located.

Asked if the flood problem was also being taken into consideration, the MMDA chief said: “I’m sure that that concern is being studied. Perhaps there’s a technology to make a subway work despite floods.”

During his visit last month, Mayor Park Won-soon of Seoul, South Korea, broached the idea of a subway system to address Metro Manila’s traffic woes. Niña P. Calleja