Mass Rail Transit may worsen KL's problems

Several NGOs are concerned that the Mass Rail Transit project spelled out in the recent Economic Transformation Programme ( ETP ) may not be viable and may even worsen the current situation in Kuala Lumpur.

Ikram Malaysia's (Ikram) Masyarakat Madani Committee and Association for the Improvement of Mass Transit (Transit) said that there was an “urgency to clarify common misperceptions” surrounding the proposed RM48 billion project that was recently unveiled as the national key economic area (NKEA) for Greater Kuala Lumpur.

      

“We are very concerned on the viability of the project and fear it might even worsen the current commuting and the economic growth bottlenecks within the Greater Kuala Lumpur,” said the committee’s chairperson Syed Ibrahim Syeh Noh AlHabshi ( right ) in a statement yesterday.

He points to three key areas of concern surrounding the issue, chiefly questionable funding models, a total lack of consideration of a good support system utilising existing forms of transport, and a general lack of proper planning and review of KL’s mass transit needs.

Questionable funding framework

Ikram draws on the negative experience of the present Light Rail Transit (LRT) systems and questions the funding framework that can be successfully implemented on the new project,  “when nothing has been done to rectify the distortion in the way the present LRT infrastructure benefits the few developers and owners of lands near the existing stations compared to the larger taxpayer and constituent base.”

According to Syed Ibrahim, “The debt of nearly RM10 billion that both Prasarana and the government have inherited from the bailouts of failed LRT (Putra and Star) companies can only be fully settled without incurring any burden to taxpayers ... if the current average LRT ticket fare of RM1.60 is revised to RM8.74.”

He says if the debt is to be borne by the taxpayers, it would translate into RM1,800 for every Malaysian household, pointing out that most of these households would not get to enjoy the LRT’s services in any case.

On the other hand, he says that if the plan were to replicate transit funding frameworks of cities like Tokyo or Hong Kong who can successfully achieve breakeven in their mass transit investments, it would require levying “an average transit tax rate of at least RM1 per square foot for each real estate that resides within the walking radius of the present 48 LRT stations ... (over) a period of 20 years.”

“Can such density-altering framework be implemented in tandem with the MRT proposal which carries a conservative RM43 billion price tag?” he asked, in light of the said “distortions” on the present LRT system.

“Our Muslim leaders must remember that one of the core principles of governance emphasised by their Holy Book is that access to prosperity must not concentrate and circulate among the selected few,” he said.

Alternatives not explored

Syed Ibrahim also criticises the plan’s failure to consider other modes of mass transit to solve KL’s transport woes, calling the omission “a gross mistake”.

“A Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system with articulated buses running on highway medians typically cost a tenth of what a grade-separated LRT system cost, and yet, like Latin America's Transmilenio, can carry more passengers than the best MRT system available in North America,” he said.

Furthermore, he says, without prioritising setting up of a good support system for any mass transit solution with proper fund allocation, “grandiose plans such as encapsulated pedestrian pathways, deep underground subways and over-the-sky monorails will only reinforce exclusivity among the urbanites, and hampers inter-connectivity which is a core element in urban multi-modal transportation.”

“In world-class cities, it is the flexible use of different mobility tools, not the presence of state-of-the-art metro, that encourage people to use public transport.”

Such tools include multiple solutions such as an Expressway Rapid Transit proposed by NGO Transit, and managing bus systems along expressways and in tandem with LRT points, traffic conventions and flexible bus lanes and interconnected pedestrian paths, to name a few.

        

He also blames the failure of the present feeder service for the LRT system on “poor urban form and planning,” that results to delays and inefficiency.

Ad-hoc public transport planning and review

Syed Ibrahim criticised the lack of study and planning that has gone into the proposal, and that basic transport issues had not even been tackled before going for the grand plans mooted by the ETP.

As an example, he singled out the GTP roadmap for urban public transport for missing out on the most important key performance indicator (KPI), that is, travel time reliability.

“(It is) the most important KPI that defines the performance measurement for transit authorities in world class cities. ... public transport can never attract car users if its opportunity cost of travelling is higher.”

“Thorough studies to solve travel time reliability issues for every single residential pocket within the Greater Kuala Lumpur should be done before any major mass transit initiative can be considered, let alone publicised,” he said.

He added that studies on people movement corridors needed to be done and “incorporated into Structure and Local Plans prior to emergence of an integrated transportation network.”  

“When the findings of the last comprehensive Klang Valley traffic study in 1999 (which took more than two years to complete) fail to continuously manifest in the subsequent urban structure plans, how can we expect the 3-month MRT study to accurately portray the viability of the MRT to solve the shortcomings of Greater Kuala Lumpur's mobility support systems and infrastructure?”

Without an integrated masterplan, he said, what would guarantee that the MRT would fit into KL’s public transport system?

He said there was a need to “focus on a single integrated public transport masterplan over piecemeal proposals.”

Furthermore, the transportation solutions that the government is attempting needs to be tackled with “active participation from all levels of stakeholders, where city councils empower community leaders to both propose and decide on matters that affect them locally.”

                                        

Problems not solved

“Although Klang Valley's rail infrastructure has been around for more than a decade, low density, car-oriented land use still prevails around most of the stations.” said the Ikram chairperson.

He says the government has not produced a workable strategy to solve this problem first. It has also failed to convince stakeholders to commit to public transport, and has not been able to make it accessible to all.

“Although Klang Valley's rail infrastructure has been around for more than a decade, low density, car-oriented land use still prevails around most of the stations.,” he said.

He recommends taking “an incremental approach” and to invest in BRT, working in a potential MRT upgrade in a planned manner, rather than to “splurge tens of billions of ringgit on one or two rail corridors and risk on defaults arising from failure to reap enough funds.”

“Public transport should be public-sector driven, and federal, state and local authorities together with local grassroots need to engage with each other and agree on a common urban development and transit blueprint,” he said.

He however stressed that they were aware of the advantages of a rail-based transit system.

Regardless. The NGOs’ concern was that the high cost of the new system will mean fewer people will be served, and as a result “most of the cost will be disproportionately shouldered by the majority who will benefit the least from the proposed MRT alignments.”

“Notwithstanding our frustration in the way unsolicited proposals have to always come from companies with direct interest in the proposals, we hope that the government ... will instill some good sense and prudence in paving the way ahead for a better public transport system that is accessible and friendly to all,” he said.