🇵🇭 Manila · Getting around
Transport and the shape of the city in Manila
Three light rail lines that do not go where most foreign residents live, and traffic that makes proximity to work the only real transport strategy.
The thing people get wrongMetro Manila has some of the worst congestion of any large city, and the rail network does not serve the main business districts well. The practical answer is not a better route but a shorter one: live where you work.
Rail
LRT-1, LRT-2 and MRT-3 cover parts of the metro and are cheap and crowded, but the alignment misses much of Makati and BGC. A subway and additional lines have been under construction for years; check what has actually opened. For most foreign residents, rail is not the daily commute.
- LRT-1, LRT-2 and MRT-3, with a shared stored-value card on most services.
- Coverage does not match where the business districts are.
- Very crowded at peak, with queues outside stations.
Roads, ride-hailing and the number coding scheme
Grab is the default for cars, alongside taxis and motorcycle-taxi services. Note the Unified Vehicular Volume Reduction Programme — the number coding scheme — which bars vehicles from many roads on one weekday according to the last digit of the plate, with the detail varying by city within the metro. It applies to your car, your driver's car and sometimes your Grab.
- Grab for cars; motorcycle-taxi apps for moving through jams.
- Number coding restricts one weekday per plate; rules differ between cities in the metro.
- A driver is a common arrangement for families and priced monthly.
Jeepneys, buses and the EDSA Busway
Jeepneys and UV Express remain the backbone of local travel and are extremely cheap, though routes are learned rather than looked up. The EDSA Busway, running in the median of the main artery, is considerably faster than the traffic beside it and is the one mass-transit option that genuinely helps on the city's central spine.
- EDSA Busway is the fastest way along EDSA at peak.
- Jeepney routes are local knowledge; apps cover them imperfectly.
- Fares are very low across all of it.
Walking, and where it works
BGC is genuinely walkable — wide pavements, crossings, shade — and Makati's villages are close behind. Most of the rest of the metro is not, and the covered walkways that do exist tend to run between malls. This is a real quality-of-life difference between districts and worth weighting heavily when choosing.
- BGC and the Makati villages are the walkable exceptions.
- Malls function as pedestrian infrastructure, not just retail.
- Heat and rain both argue for a short walk to the office.
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