Improving the country’s mass transport systems and maritime travel is one of the priorities of the new leadership at the Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC).

New DoTC Secretary Jose de Jesus said he wants to see an improvement in the Light Rail Transit (LRT) and Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT3) as well as completion of the unfinished railway projects of the Arroyo administration.

“You know we cover land, sea and air. Let’s start with land, and it’s both rail and road. With the rail, we want to improve our rail equipment starting with the LRT and MRT systems.

We have a pending extension of LRT1 (Monumento-Baclaran) to Cavite and finish the connection of LRT1 from Monumento to North Avenue, Quezon City,” De Jesus told reporters in a briefing.

“Then the extension of LRT2 (Santolan,Pasig-Recto,Manila) from Santolan, along the Marcos highway to Masinag (Antipolo). There is a projected MRT7. We want to see that happen. We probably need to improve the LRT system by improving the equipment, so that we can field more coaches. I understand the coaches are rather old. We want that system to be a really good system equal to those in Europe,” he said.

The MRT7 is a proposed railway system stretching from Commonwealth Avenue, Regalado Avenue and Quirino Avenue Extension up to San Jose del Monte in Bulacan.

“We hope to do that hopefully in the next three years. I’m sure it’s going to cost a lot. But I have no exact numbers yet. We hope to do that hopefully in the next three years through build-operate- transfer, public-private partnership or with the government building the infrastructure, the tracks and then bid out the concession for the coaches and the operation and maintenance,” De Jesus said.

“That is a very gallant aspiration,” he said when asked if his plans could be achieved in three years. The new DOTC chief also vowed to further develop maritime travel in the country via the Roll-on, Roll-Off (RoRo) system or the “nautical highway” saying that it is the “real mass transport system.”

“You know the RoRo is a very good system. And I just found out that 83 percent of inter-island passenger traffic travels by boat. So that’s the real mass transport system. So we need to improve that. Some of the boats, I understand, that are being used are rather old and some may not be seaworthy enough to withstand, travel in the open sea, especially those going to the Visayas and Mindanao. So that’s something we really need to do,” he said.

Maritime tragedies in the country had earlier been blamed on old vessels being allowed to set sail.

“So the Marina (Maritime Industry Authority) is a very important agency,” he said.

Under his leadership, De Jesus, a graduate of Bachelor of Arts in Economics at the Ateneo De Manila University has vowed transparency in the department hounded by a previous scandal about the botched National Broadband Network project during the Arroyo administration.