Riding on the wrong side of the tracks

Trust me, I am thankful for the improvements in the public transport system. Riding the train sure beats out the non-airconditioned buses anyday. Despite this gratitude, however, I still have to ask:

Why can't people do things right the first time?

Last Friday, my plans sort of shifted after one phone call. Instead of my planned quiet evening of going to the salon then going home, I had to take a quick (but rather uneasy) MRT ride to Shangri-la Shaw to meet my mom and head off to East Ave. for the dry run of her friend's ice cream parlor.

I have ridden the MRT during rush hour, but always on the counterflow. I would usually be coming from the Cubao station to Ayala, and the flow of people going southbound on rush hour is a LOT less than the opposite direction. I've gotta say though, thank goodness for having separate couches for female passengers! That is a huge relief.

Anyway, being the pseudo-claustrophobic person that I am, I couldn't help but be utterly disturbed during the entire ride. And here I thought that women would be more "giving" than the men. That they would let the passengers alight before riding the trains. But no, it was definitely not the case. There were a lot of pushing, shoving, and elbowing involved. I felt stuck in a throng of Amazonas. I couldn't blame them though. I had to wait for what felt like an hour, but was only probably 15 minutes on the actual platform before I got onto a train.

While in transit, I couldn't help but start doing mental calculations of the number of people who could possibly be taking public transportation. And although I never came up with an actual figure, I realized that it was definitely worth more than 5 feet of space on a rail transit. Due to the time constraints, I don't have the luxury of finding more precise data:

Metro Manila population (est) = 11,289,368
MM Employment rate (as of Jul '06 according to the NSO) = 86.5% = 9,765,303
(Honestly, I was surprised when I found this info! Isn't it an overestimate??!)
Workers who likely take their own transpo = 4,292,272 (acc to the National Statistics Coordinating Board, 2003)
Workers who take public transpo = 5,473,031
Since the train fares are higher than other modes of transport, let's say that only 10% take the MRT = 547,303

I didn't really have to compute all that though, because I found the MRT site that tracks the "ridership". On the average, there are roughly 350,000 passengers in ONE DAY (that's not even 10%!).
If 60% of these passengers ride during rush hour, that's 210,000; split that into 2 (morning rush and evening rush), then that's 105,000 passengers per time, spread over a span of say, 3 hours each, and that's around 35,000 passengers per hour.

I don't know how accurate my figures are, but in any case, the point is, the MRT is too small for the demand. Do things right the first time. Build bigger trains. Build bigger stations. Build wider platforms. Being proactive is less expensive than being reactive.

It would sure pay off if this country ever learned that lesson.

*A great big sigh*

I would continue but it's ciao time ;-)