'Cut MRT maintenance costs before increasing fares'

MANILA, Philippines - Palawan Rep. Antonio Alvarez urged the government yesterday to reduce its P1.1-billion annual maintenance cost for the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) before increasing fares in the 16.9-kilometer EDSA train line.

“A huge disparity presently exists between the maintenance charges of the MRT and the two lines of the Light Rail Transit (LRT),” Alvarez said.

Alvarez said the government pays a Japanese contractor $2 million or about P90 million a month to maintain the MRT.

On the other hand, it spends P32 million and P20 million a month for LRT lines 1 and 2, which are twice longer with 34.5 kilometers combined track, he said.

“In short, government spends almost twice for the MRT than what it does for the LRT, yet the latter is twice as long as the former,” Alvarez explained.

Noting that the government is poised to increase the fares in the three mass transport systems, he pointed out that the government “can further improve its bottom line by cutting back on their operating cost, of which maintenance is one of the big-ticket items.”

Malacañang has given the green light to the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) to raise MRT and LRT fares – said to average 56 percent but will be firmed up once public consultations are done as it argues that artificially keeping fares low through multibillion-peso annual subsidies is not financially sustainable.

Alvarez is supporting the planned fare hike, saying a commuter who takes the MRT twice a day for a year receives an annual subsidy of P23,850 from the government, “something that a Palawan farmer does not get.”

He said the fare subsidy per MRT commuter amounts to P47.70 “per ride,” prompting the government to earmark P7.3 billion in this year’s national budget for the line’s operations.

The P7.3 billion will be used to shoulder the cost of ferrying an estimated 420,000 MRT daily riders, a volume which adds up to 152 million customers for 2011, Alvarez said.

He said the “current fare structure of the MRT is unfair to taxpayers in other parts of Luzon, in Visayas and Mindanao because they do not use the MRT but they help in its upkeep.”

“A farmer in the countryside gets to subsidize the MRT even if he hasn’t seen the shadow of it and even if he will never get a chance in his lifetime to ride in it,” he said.

“Even if MRT fare will double to P30 for a 17-kilometer ride, that is still cheaper than what a ‘padyak’ or a ‘kuliglig’ charges per kilometer.”

LRT Line 1, the first of the elevated railway systems to be built and to become operational, services the route from Baclaran in Pasay City to Caloocan City and vice versa, passing through Taft and Rizal avenues.

LRT Line 2 runs from Santolan in Pasig City to Recto in Manila and vice versa, passing through Marcos Highway, Aurora Boulevard, Ramon Magsaysay Boulevard, Legarda and Recto Avenue.

MRT-3 travels from North Ave. in Quezon City to Pasay City via EDSA and vice versa.

The government will soon interconnect the three rail systems.