The Light Rail Transit Line 2 (LRT2) will resume full operations starting Friday, January 22.

LRT2 operator Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) announced on Thursday, January 21, that 3 stations – Anonas, Katipunan, and Santolan – will reopen after being closed for nearly 16 months.

Tests have confirmed the stability and reliability of power supply, allowing for the reopening.

But LRTA Administrator Reynaldo Berroya noted in a statement that operations will resume with “limitations.” He said the damaged rectifier substation, signaling, and telecommunications are still being restored.

Because of this, the LRTA said the headway or interval between trains will be 14 minutes on average, as train speed is limited to 30 kilometers per hour.

End-to-end travel will now take more than 35 minutes, from the previous 28 minutes.

“We are hoping to deploy more trains in LRT2’s fleet so we are expediting the restoration of down trains. Fielding more trains will reduce the current headway and add more passengers to our current 32,000 average daily ridership as affected by the pandemic restriction,” said Berroya.

According to the LRTA, the first trips from the Santolan and Recto stations will start at 5 am, while the last trips will be at 8:30 pm and 9 pm, respectively.

In October 2019, a carriageway fire partially stopped LRT2 operations, severely damaging two rectifier substations between the Anonas and Katipunan stations.

The LRTA initially announced that it would take a “maximum” of 9 months to repair the system. The estimated damage to the LRT2 was at P428 million. – Rappler.com