THE Marikina City and Antipolo City stations of the Light Rail Transit 2 (LRT-2) East Extension Project will start operation next week, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade announced in a Facebook post.

“We’ve been waiting for this for years, next week June 22, we will inaugurate the actual operation of that portion of the train,” Tugade said in a press conference last Friday.

The two stations will be fully operational the day after the inauguration.

The fare from Recto in Manila to Marikina or Antipolo will be P30 for single journey tickets, according to the fare matrix released by the Light Rail Transit Authority.

With the completion of the two stations, commuting time from Recto to Antipolo, the capital of Rizal province, will be cut to just 40 minutes from the usual three hours.

The railway will also accommodate 80,000 more passengers, boosting the LRT-2 ridership to 320,000 from the previous 240,000.

The LRT-2 East Extension Project is one of the big-ticket railway infrastructure projects under the Duterte administration’s Build, Build, Build initiative.

LRT-2’s 13.8-kilometer line traverses the cities of Pasig, Marikina, Quezon City, San Juan, and Manila, and the major streets of Marcos Highway, Aurora Boulevard, Legarda St. and Recto Ave.