Quote:
Originally Posted by colemonkee
What's the public transportation system like in Manila? Are there rail lines between the nodes of highrises?
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There is unfortunately 1 commuter train line, with an expansion in the works. There used to be a pretty sophisticated rail system to my understanding, but much of it was decimated in WWII. Transit it pretty chaotic, hence Manila has some of the worst traffic in the world. (when i was there, it took almost 2 hours to travel 8 Km).
Lots of construction for expressways, but the utter construction creates an entire new traffic problem. Some of the more modern areas (BGC for example) have been laid out in a much more efficient way, but for the rest of the city, it is either jeepenies, mini vans, motorcades of coach buses, or tuk tuks/or habal habal (both are forms of motorbike taxis). Many pedestrian crossings are also long spanning sky walks or underground tunnels. What look like subway train entrances, are actually portals to a vast network of underground pedestrian subways.
To my understanding, the challenge of having a metro mass transit system is building on top of a already complicated infrastructure that is over its capacity. With 16 cities making up MM, and a population of 20 million people, getting different municipalities to work together has also proven difficult.