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MRT Philippines

Life and Lemons

MRT to Nowhere

MRT picture from blog.neilrara.com

Ticket to a loooooonnnng ride.

The concept of the Metro Rail train system is to provide fast, efficient mass transportation that cuts through traffic and carries people from end-to-end cities in 30 minutes or less. Just like your favorite pizza delivery service. I just made that up as I typed, because I thought it made sense that people were delivered to places much faster than pizza. The one other metro rail line I’ve been on—the MTR in Hong Kong–seems to agree with me though. After a Hong Kong MTR train leaves the platform, a one-minute timer starts followed shortly by a cool voice on the speaker affirming that the next train will be arriving in 60 seconds. The cool voice doesn’t lie to you. Thus the queuing is rarely crowded and is always orderly (though the Chinese have a predisposition to elbowing strangers unapologetically), and the passengers cross the city in about the same time it takes to boil an egg. I might have exaggerated a bit but you get my drift.

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