Another day, another MRT issue.
Six Metro Rail Transit-3 (MRT-3) personnel sustained injuries after two maintenance vehicles collided earlier today. The delay in morning operations also caused long queues for commuters who travel early to avoid the morning rush hour.
In a tweet, the MRT-3 management told commuters that there was a delay in the deployment of trains due to an accident that involved two maintenance service vehicles or “unimogs” that collided between Buendia and Guadalupe stations while the personnel were maintaining the tracks at 3am.
The six workers are now being treated in a hospital, Rappler reported.
GMA News stated that the driver of one of the maintenance vehicles was traversing the northbound lane and didn’t notice the other maintenance vehicle in front of him, resulting in the mishap.
Management is still waiting on updates about the condition of the injured personnel, The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.
The accident led to a delay in the deployment of trains, which usually starts at 4:30am. It only resumed an hour late at 5:30am.
Operations began at 6am with 8 trains. The Department of Transportation (DOTr) also stepped in to deploy buses to assist affected passengers.
Rappler reported that operations were also delayed on Monday because of “additional pre-insertion checks” that were conducted.
Infamous for its inefficiency, the MRT-3 broke down more than 500 times last year, The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported. Since the year started, it broke down 65 times, according to Rappler.
And it’s not just trains that are problematic. On Monday, a photo of a sidewalk packed with commuters waiting to ride buses even went viral because of how crazy it looks.
READ: Facebook post shows how bad commuting in the metro has become
The netizen who posted the bus photo also complained about MRT-3. She said: “We don’t take the MRT because the lines are long and sometimes we’re afraid that the train will end up stalling — that’s why [we] prefer not to join the crowd there. Sometimes we are the people who take the train but end up leaving it because of mechanical failure. It’s [become] normal for a crowd to walk down [from the station] to wait for a bus [on the road].”
