LRT Line 1 (Metro Manila)

The exterior of Roosevelt station, the line's current northern terminus

An aerial view of Pedro Gil station

The platform of EDSA station

The line serves 20 stations along its route. A twenty-first station is yet to be constructed.[3] Eight stations which are part of the Line 1 South Extension Project are also set to be constructed south of Baclaran.

A previously proposed station, Malvar station in Caloocan was proposed during the construction of the northern extension located between Monumento and Balintawak stations, becoming a bargaining object during the entire extension line's construction in the jurisdiction of Caloocan City. However, the planned Malvar Station was completely shelved by the Aquino Administration.

Name	Distance (km)		Rail/Bus Transfers	Location
	Between stations	From Roosevelt
North Avenue Grand Central Station	—	—	3 MRT Line 3 7 MRT Line 7  MMS  Metro Manila Subway, EDSA Busway	Quezon City
Roosevelt †	—	0.000	—
Balintawak	1.870	1.870	EDSA Busway, Bus 3, 20, 21, 22
Monumento	2.250	4.120	EDSA Busway, Bus 1, 2, 3, 17, 20, 21, 22	Caloocan City
5th Avenue	1.087	5.207	Bus 2, 17
R. Papa	0.954	6.161	Bus 17	Manila
Abad Santos	0.660	6.821	Bus 17
Blumentritt	0.927	7.748	PNR Metro Commuter Line, Bus 17
Tayuman	0.671	8.419	Bus 17
Bambang	0.618	9.037	Bus 17
Doroteo Jose	0.648	9.685	LRT Line 2 via Recto, Bus 10, 17
Carriedo	0.685	10.370	—
Central Terminal	0.725	11.095	Bus 6, 17
United Nations	1.214	12.309	Bus 6, 17
Pedro Gil	0.754	13.063	Bus 6, 17
Quirino	0.794	13.857	Bus 6, 17
Vito Cruz	0.827	14.684	Bus 6, 17
Gil Puyat	1.061	15.745	Bus 6, 13, 17	Pasay City
Libertad	0.730	16.475	Bus 6, 17
EDSA	1.010	17.485	3 MRT Line 3 via Taft Avenue, Bus 6, 17, 18
Baclaran †	0.588	18.073	—
Redemptorist	—	—	—	Parañaque City
Manila International Airport	—	—	—
Asia World	—	—	PITX, EDSA Busway, Bus 2, 18, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30
Ninoy Aquino	—	—	—
Dr. Santos	—	—	—
Las Piñas	—	—	—	Las Piñas City
Zapote	—	—	—	Bacoor City, Cavite
Niog	—	—	—
Note: Stations or lines in italics are under construction

LRTA Class 1000 being built in Bruges in 1982

In 1977, the results of a fourteen-month study conducted by Freeman Fox and Associates and funded by the World Bank recommended the construction of a street-level light rail line in Manila. Following a review by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, later the Department of Transportation (DOTr), the proposal was revised to an elevated railway in order to avoid building over the city's many intersections. This raised the project's cost from ₱1.5 billion to ₱2 billion. An alignment along Rizal and Taft avenues, which spanned from Monumento, Caloocan in the north to Baclaran, Pasay in the south, was selected because it followed a relatively straight path for most of its route.[4]^:36 On July 12, 1980, President Ferdinand Marcos created the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) and assigned First Lady and Governor of Metro Manila Imelda Marcos as its chairman. While the LRTA confined its roles to policy making, fare regulation, and future planning, the line's operations were assigned to Metro, Inc., a sister company of Meralco. The line came to be referred to as Metrorail.[5]

The Belgian Government granted a ₱300 million soft and interest-free loan for the project's construction, with a repayment period of 30 years. Additional funding was later sourced from a ₱700 million loan, provided by a Belgian consortium consisting of ACEC, La Brugeoise et Nivelles, Tractionnel Engineering International, and Transurb Consult. The consortium also supplied the line's first light rail vehicles, power control, signalling, and telecommunications, as well as provided training and technical assistance. Designed as a public utility rather than a profit center, the line was expected to incur a deficit through 1993, but complete its repayments within a period of 20 years.[5]

The government-owned Construction Development Corporation of the Philippines was the project's sole contractor.[4]^:36 In 1981, an economic recession and the government's inability to provide counterpart funds for civil works and right-of-way acquisition, which amounted to 60 percent of the project's total cost, led to a delay in construction.[6]^:170 Work finally began in September of that year along Taft Avenue, between Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) and Libertad Street.[7] In order to make way for Carriedo station and a segment of tracks approaching the Pasig River, a department store and a classroom building owned by FEATI University were demolished.[4]^:36 The southern section, between the Baclaran to United Nations stations, was inaugurated on September 11, 1984, and commercial operation along this section commenced the following December 1. The entire line subsequently became fully operational on May 13, 1985. During the first several years, two-car trains that could accommodate up to 748 passengers were utilized. This amounted to a capacity of 20,000 passengers per direction.[8]

• May 12, 1985: Central Terminal to Monumento

• March 22, 2010: Balintawak
• October 22, 2010: Roosevelt

On October 12, 2014, Light Rail Manila Corporation (LRMC), a joint venture company of Metro Pacific's Metro Pacific Light Rail Corporation (MPLRC), Ayala Corporation's AC Infrastructure Holdings Corporation (AC Infra), and the Philippine Investment Alliance for Infrastructure's Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings (Philippines) PTE Ltd.(MIHPL), signed a concession agreement with the DOTr and LRTA for the operation and maintenance of Line 1 and the construction of a PhP 65 billion extension project to Bacoor, Cavite.[9][10] LRMC, in turn, contracted the operation and maintenance of the line for 20 years to RATP Dev under its subsidiary RATP Dev Transdev Asia, a joint venture between Transdev and RATP Dev.[11][12] The 32-year concession started on September 12, 2015.

On May 29, 2020, the Japanese company Sumitomo Corp, which currently maintains the MRT Line 3, acquired a 34.9-percent stake of the Ayala-MPIC consortium.[13]

A south extension of Line 1, also known as the South Extension Project or the Cavite Extension Project in the Metro Manila Rail Plans has been proposed and would aim to serve the areas of Parañaque to Cavite. The extension will span from the Quirino Avenue, Harrison Avenue, and Taft Avenue Extension intersection, then would travel down from Redemptorist Road to Coastal Road, and will traverse through the Parañaque River and will enter Ninoy Aquino Avenue until reaching and traversing the C5 Extension Road, and will enter Diego Cera Avenue, and will enter the Las Pinas-Bacoor Boundary of Zapote Bridge until reaching Niog station at Bacoor, Cavite. The extension would add 8 stations over some 11.7 kilometers (7.3 mi) of new elevated railway sections and would be the third rail line extending outside the Metro Manila area (after the east extension of Line 2 and the construction of Line 7).

An unsolicited bid to conduct this work from Canada's SNC-Lavalin was rejected by the Philippine government in 2005.[34] In 2006, the government worked with advisers (International Finance Corporation, White & Case, Halcrow and others) to conduct an open-market invitation to tender for the extension and for a 30-year concession to run the extended line. However, Former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo subsequently withdrew the project.

The Line 1 South Extension Project will consist of the following eight stations:

• Redemptorist – Parañaque
• Manila International Airport – Parañaque
• Asia World – Parañaque
• Ninoy Aquino – Parañaque
• Dr. Santos – Parañaque
• Las Piñas – Las Piñas
• Zapote – along the boundaries of Bacoor and Las Piñas
• Niog – Bacoor

Plans were also laid out to include 2 additional stations for the extension project:

• Manuyo Uno station - Las Piñas
• Talaba station - Bacoor

The plans for the southern extension project were laid out as early as 2012 and is expected to begin construction in 2014, but was delayed due to right of way issues. The issues were resolved in 2016, and on May 4, 2017, the groundbreaking for the ₱64.915 billion ($1.36 billion)[35] South Extension Project was held, with the assistance of the Light Rail Manila Corporation and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.[36] The extension project also features the construction of three intermodal facilities, one satellite depot located at Zapote, and mass upgrades to the existing Baclaran depot. The project is expected to cater more than 800,000 passengers daily once completed, with the DOTr secretary Arthur Tugade projecting the early completion of the project to be within 2020.[37][38]

The line would be extended from Parañaque southwards, connecting Las Piñas and Bacoor to the Mega Manila railway network. Civil works on the extension began on May 7, 2019 after the right-of-way acquisitions was cleared. The construction of the extension line will be built using a full span launching method, a new construction method, renowned as one of the fastest methods of construction for bridges and elevated viaducts that cuts time and total land space needed for construction. The LRMC partnered with Bouygues Construction,[39] Alstom (for the installation of the signalling and communication systems),[40] and the RATP Dev Transdev Asia[41] for the overall engineering, procurement, consultation, construction and assistance services for the project. The extension project will also serve as the first railway line to use the new construction method.

As of December 31, 2020, the project is 50.61% complete. Partial operation of the project will be in the end of 2021 and full operation will be in first quarter of 2024.

On Rizal Day in the year 2000, a Yellow Line train (Car number 1037) exploded near Blumentritt station as part of a series of explosions in a terrorist attack known as the Rizal Day bombings. The attack on the line killed some 22 people and injured hundreds. Eight members of both Jemaah Islamiyah and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which include Hambal, Asia's most wanted man, and Fathur Rahman al-Ghozi, were charged with plotting and masterminding the attacks in 2003, some three years after the attacks. Three suspects were put on trial,[42][43] with al-Ghozi receiving 17 years in prison due to the illegal possession of explosives. Al-Ghozi later died in a firefight after attempting to escape from prison. Car number 1037 is decommissioned. There were plans to reconstruct it, but was ultimately scrapped along with other units deemed beyond economical repair.