Businessman Manuel V. Pa-ngilinan said building two common stations linking the elevated railways in Metro Manila will prove to be an inefficient exercise.
Pangilinan, chairman of Metro Pacific Investments Corp., told reporters that having two stations just a few meters apart to linking the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Line 3 and the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 1, and possibly even the MRT 7, will defeat the purpose of a
common station.
He said it will make more sense for the government to pursue a single station that would link the competing shopping malls.
“They can have one exit to TriNoma, one exit to SM. So it’s settled,” Pangilinan said, citing the design of Hong Kong’s MTR Corp., among the most successful railway operators in the world.
He added that the government can ask the two developers to shoulder the cost of the common station, since both would benefit from the foot traffic coming from the facility.
The MRT 3 and the LRT 1 serve some 900,000 commuters daily. That number is expected to increase once the MRT 7, which has yet to begin construction, starts its operations some two or three years from now. The MRT 7 will be operated by San Miguel Corp.
No formal proposal has been made by the government, but earlier talks involved creating two
common stations, one of which will be constructed on the side of SM City North Edsa, and another at the TriNoma Mall where the current MRT 3 has its depot.
Metro Pacific has a vast infrastructure portfolio, from tollroads to power and water supply distribution, but has no property interest in the area. The company, however, won the P65-billion contract to operate LRT 1 and extend the Monumanto-to-Baclaran line all the way to Bacoor, Cavite.
Metro Pacific President Jose Ma. Lim said the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) has yet to approach them with a proposal on the configuration of the common station, but said they were aware of these discussions.
“We heard that there are two stations, which we think is not very efficient. There should be [only] one station for all three lines,” Lim said.
The two common stations
configuration was meant to appease the SM group and drop the complaint it filed against the government before the Supreme Court.
“Our position is still the same. We know our rights and we will insist that the common station is with us. So it’s up to them [government] if they still want to do it,” Hans Sy, president of SM Prime Holdings Inc., said.
“Our position is that we never worked on it, it just fell onto our laps. In fact, we felt we were forced into the situation. Now, they will just adjust it? That shouldn’t be. I will not allow it. I will insist on my right. But if they still want to do it on the other side, then it’s their call,” Sy said.
SM Prime took the DOTC to the court last year for locating the proposed common station away from its SM City North Edsa shopping mall and on to an area near Ayala Land Inc.’s TriNoma mall.
SM Prime said the decision to locate the station near TriNoma
violated their 2009 agreement which the DOTC allegedly favored.
Under the terms of the proposed TriNoma station, the DOTC will shoulder the project’s P1.4-billion construction cost.
Last week, however, Teresita T. Sy-Coson, an adviser to the board of SM Prime Holdings Inc., said her company is now willing to find a compromise deal with Ayala Land Inc. for the location of the common station, which is expected to bring additional foot traffic to the malls near the train systems in North Edsa, Quezon City.
Sy-Coson, the eldest child of the country’s top billionaire, said the key to the compromise is for her mall, SM North Edsa, to have its own common station, not minding if Ayala Land’s TriNoma Mall gets its own.
“As long as we have our own station, then we are okay with it,” she said in a brief interview.
It has been several years now since the P1.4-billion facility has been planned, but the location of the transportation infrastructure has yet to be agreed upon.
The common alignment, which aims to link the LRT 1 to the MRT 3 and 7, has been in limbo since the DOTC reviewed the project’s technical and financial components years back.
This led to the change of the station’s location, which was initially set to be near SM North Edsa, earning the ire of the group of the country’s largest mall operator, which paid an initial P200 million for the naming rights of the station.
Transportation officials have repeatedly said building the station near TriNoma is both economically and environmentally viable, as this would result in a lower cost and less urban blight.
SM Prime then brought its battle to the Supreme Court, which issued a stay order against the DOTC and the Light Rail Transit Authority in 2014, enjoining them to stop the transfer of the common alignment’s location.
Finally deciding on the station’s location would allow Universal LRT Corp., a unit of San Miguel Corp., to move on with the future MRT 7.
Currently, the most-diversified conglomerate in the Philippines is negotiating with contractors and suppliers for the construction
requirements of the MRT 7.
The rail component of the MRT 7 project involves the construction of a 22.8-kilometer rail-transit system that is envisioned to operate 108 rail cars in a three-car train configuration with a daily-passenger capacity, ranging from 448,000 to 850,000.
It will have 14 stations, starting with the North Avenue Station in Edsa passing through Commonwealth Avenue, Regalado Avenue and Quirino Highway up to the proposed Intermodal Transport Terminal in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan.
The road component of the project, meanwhile, involves the construction of a six-lane access road from San Jose del Monte to Balagtas, Bulacan, North Luzon Expressway Exit.
It is seen to be completed by 2018.