Decision-makers were very quick to seize the opportunity for an off-budget project called MRT3 on the pretext that a public transport system was required urgently to tackle Klang Valley’s road congestion. This was the view of columnist and transport expert, Rosli Khan (FMT, 21 August 2022).
The argument by policymakers was that the passenger demand will be created by the car owners and users once it is built. This is Say’s Law. How simplistic. Is urban passenger demand derived in this manner?
Source: https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com
The allocations for the project have been made on an off-budget basis, similar to the approach taken for 1MDB, MRT1, MRT2, LRT and ECRL, meaning the budgets did not go through parliament for debate and approval. Some are asking if this is another LCS (littoral combat ship) controversy in the making.
The crux of the matter is, why are we continuing to prop up Klang Valley but not the rest of the country?
Every new piece of infrastructure, KVDT, LRT, MRT, Merdeka 118, TRX, is concentrated in the Klang Valley. Other parts of the country are not important? Go to Lawas or Limbang and see its condition!
Penang and Johor Bharu are equally congested, partly due to poor planning and excessive land development. Most of the plans are car-centric and lack focus on public transport.
There are also neglected areas like Kota Kinabalu and Kuching which are rapidly growing in terms of property development but receive scant attention when it comes to public transport infrastructure and facilities. Mobility issues remain high on the development agenda for these areas.
Klang Valley has received massive spending on basic infrastructure including electricity, water supply and 5G communication facilities. On top of that there are the LRT2 extension and LRT3 on which more than RM40 billion was spent in the last 10 years. In the scramble to spend public funds, MRT1 was developed at a cost of more than RM50 billion in the same period.
It was conceived on the poor assumption that this particular line would serve about 400,000 passengers a day. Or was this pre-meditated optimistic forecast for securing financing or political support?
The same team also predicted that road congestion along this corridor would be a thing of the past once MRT1 was up and running. Today, this is hardly the case.
MRT1 struggles to attract 100,000 passengers daily while traffic congestion along the corridor prevails and commuters are up in arms over poor facilities despite the massive amount of public funds being spent.
At many stations there are still no car parks, in contrast to the “park and ride” concept that the original planners talked about. Despite all the shortfalls experienced by MRT1, the decision-makers went ahead with MRT2 construction and now, we are faced with MRT3. This is at an estimated cost of RM1 billion per kilometre (hence over RM50 billion in total cost).
After almost four years, this brand new piece of infrastructure (MRT1) is still not functioning at full capacity. Broken escalators, faulty lifts and systems failure are common. Even LRTs have maintenance issues. If you want an example, go to Bangsar LRT station, the escalators are always in a state of disrepair.
Instilling a strong maintenance culture among the Malaysian staff and workers, and training them towards this, must be given the main priority at all rail networks.
Although it can be deduced that rail is the transport of the future, there is no point in building more LRT or MRT facilities if Malaysians cannot maintain the current ones well.
In addition, let us “level-up” development in regions like Sabah and Sarawak. Why do we take their resources and build-up the Kelang Valley?
Reference:
Is there a need for MRT3? Rosli Khan, FMT, 21 August 2022
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