Like many KL residents, I am doubtful about the intentions of rushing into setting up a mass rail transit (MRT) system.
Firstly, one wonders why such a system was not conceived ten years ago when the clearly inadequate LRT was signed and sealed. Singapore and Hong Kong at the time already had their systems and studies had then already compared the LRT system with the MRT sytem to determine which was the better solution.
Having built LRT and monorail systems to much inconvenience of the cityfolk, we are expecting another half a decade of digging and re-routing as a third system starts construction.
I am not jumping for joy.
This clearly shows how the BN government had never planned an integrated and definitive solution to KL’s traffic.
At the same time, the government and the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) and their kawan-kawan are packing KL chockfull of buildings and increasing the city density beyond reasonable considerations.
(I would not be surprised if the 100-storey Menara Warisan Tower gets steamrolled ahead despite our protests. A minister’s recent comment that “we will eventually accept it” rings ominous. That is their version of “consultation”. Ram it down our throats until we “eventually accept it”).
Apart from turning the city upside down (Greater KL or Greater Chaos?) due to incompetence or greed or both, I don’t forsee the completion of the MRT as having any real effect on the worsening traffic situation in KL.
Has the government even attempted to study and analyse what the causes of congestion are? Some are complex, but some are no-brainers.
If the simpler solutions have never been attempted to be solved, what makes us think a new MRT service would make things better?
One of the main reasons why KL is congested are the buses, who sometimes double park along small roads like Jalan Silang, waiting for passengers.
In an efficient bus system, buses should move after a pickup and move on if there are no passengers. Apart from delaying arrival times, these buses literally choke up roads around the Petaling Street and Central Market area that otherwise would actually move.
No guesses about the second culprit: the taxis. Ditto all of the above, the taxis fight for waiting space with the buses, leaving only one out of three lanes, or half out of two, passable by traffic.
Even at midnight, not to mention throughout the day, taxis and cars parked on both sides of Jalan Bukit Bintang reduce the entire road into a single lane dodging cars on both sides.
It would be beyond belief if the police or DBKL who liberally dish out tickets in the suburbs, do not know the situation here. Yet it persists, even before the very eyes of cops who stand around doing nothing.
The above also means that buses do not leave and arrive on time, so who want’s to wait around all day? My mother got so fed up with buses she forced herself to learn to drive.
As for the LRT, the system is so inadequate that repeating its shortcomings will sound like a broken record. I think the comment of an old pakcik one day when he saw the mere two carriages of the LRT at Masjid Jamek, “Kenapa kecik macam ni saja?” sums it up. I guess PM Najib Abdul Razak has never had to take the LRT during rush hour.
So while our PM is happily impressing people with his Economic Transformation Programme and New Economic Model and what not, KL is being transformed into a nightmare of congestion by the very policies and actions of the government, the city council and their cronies.
So don’t expect me to celebrate the new MRT system: it’s nothing more than an expensive (and no doubt lucrative, to some) project to address a mess you guys up there have created, at our expense.
