Dear Editor,

The news that our Prime Minister acknowledges the deteriorating state of KTM Komuter
and RapidKL LRTs this morning proves that there is still a glimmer of hope that our
mass transit will be improved. No transport minister officials have ever cared to ‘turun
padang’ during rush hours to discover our mass transit problems, and PM’s surprise visit
couldn’t be timelier. I suggest other leaders to follow suit in doing whatever they can to
see firsthand how the caretakers are responding to the people’s need to the extent of
doing a surprise ‘turun padang’, the way the great Islamic leader, Caliph Umar did for his
constituents. If only the PM himself would try the RapidKL buses next time as not all
populations are served by the existing rail services.

I believe there has to be a greater understanding of how mass transit can improve our
lives before we blurt out quick-fix suggestions to address concerns highlighted by
different stakeholders. Knee-jerk reactions such as the wrongful retraction of subsidy to
RapidKL few weeks ago show the lack of understanding among our caretakers on the
true objective of having an effective and efficient mass transit system.

CERTAIN THINGS ARE BEST TO BE SHARED

Look at the things we use daily around us that we share with others. The streets,
boulevards, street lamps, trash, fire and police services are among the things we share
through our pooled tax contributions. If we live in a high-rise apartment, we are expected
to be collectively responsible for maintaining the shared lifts because we definitely can't
afford to have individual lifts that stop directly in front of our door bells.

Mass transit, in the same way, behaves in a collective manner. If most of us think we
should get to where we want to be individually, then there will not be enough incentive
for a pooled fund to be set up for the purpose of mass transit.

Most of us have been used to driving our own private vehicles because getting around has
been nothing short of affordable to be done individually, until our pursuit for better
lifestyle ends us up in population density boom, widespread urban sprawling, costly
public road infrastructure build-ups and patching, massive traffic jams, and lately, sky-
rocketing fuel prices, ruining our collective productivities and in the end backfires on our
individualistic pursuit for a more urbane lifestyle.

TIME TO SHARE FOR OUR OWN SAKE

Every single additional road space taken by a new road user will eat out another user's
space. It is a no-nonsense zero-sum game. If we can pool our resources together to build
sidewalks, streetlamps and city streets, why it is hard for us to get the same allocation to
build an integrated mass transit system that can utilize the shared sidewalks, streetlamps
and city streets more efficiently. We don't have to worry about beating each other for the
scarce road space we’ve got.
If we think public transport operators (and hence, users) should privately bear all of the
costs related to mass transit infrastructures, system and operations, then we should
remind ourselves that a majority of all that costs are as result of our collective lack of
concern towards sharing. Beating the traffic individually means creating more air and
sound pollution, more productivity losses, more preventable injuries and fatalities and
lesser quality of life for every single user that depends on the same traffic area. Looks
like all these while, the public transport users are the ones who have been subsidizing the
society by enduring all the hassles so that scarce road spaces can be freed up for private
vehicle users.

If we think mass transit thrives in the presence of competition without governmental

interference, then remember the single biggest competitor to mass transit is private
transport (cars, MPVs, SUVs, motorbikes, trucks etc). Private transport monopolizes
most of the government-funded infrastructure that mass transit relies on.

Not just infrastructure, but other types of mass transit support like enforcement, licensing,
route rationalization, fare system, feedback management and public information relay at
the local and federal level are currently under complicated and overlapping jurisdictions
of different government agencies (EPU, Transport Ministry, CVLB, MECD, JPJ, City
Hall, PDRM, JKR, LLM etc), all working in silo. Without well-coordinated mass transit
support, there can be no accountability, and without key performance indicators to
achieve and no systems to rely on, mass transit operators have no choice other than to cut
corners to survive.

If we think public transport operators and users should privately bear all the costs related
to mass transit infrastructures, systems and operations, then we should remind ourselves
that our scarce public roads are disproportionately taken up by private vehicles which do
not incur the full costs it generates for society: infrastructure, wear and tear, pollution,
congestion, accidents and productivity loss.

That is why fare revenues only make up one-third of a typical transit system’s operating
budget in most well-developed countries. The rest are made up by taxpayers’ money.
Academic study in the United States has shown that every $1 invested in public
transportation projects generates from $4 to $9 in local economic activity.

Without sufficient government funding, there is no way the current independent mass
transit operators will be able to take away the lure of motorcycles. MIROS has recently
anticipated higher road deaths from rapid increase in the number of motorcyclists on the
road since the recent massive petrol price hike. It is imperative for the government to
increase mass transit coverage through full incorporation of bus services as part of the
transportation modes to be listed for improvement in the 2009 Budget. Riding a transit
bus is 79 times safer than riding a car, let alone a motorcycle.

Our caretakers are the people we elect and trust to channel our pooled contributions
towards things that are better off shared and instead of using taxpayers money for public
transport, our caretakers have been channeling the money for superfluous purposes such
as the recent purchase of Mercedes by Terengganu assemblymen. Scarce available land
strips have been given out to private entities to make profit out of highway
concessionaires at the expense of those who cannot afford to pay the toll fee whose
traveling paths have been made more time consuming, tedious and complicated due to
traffic competition in non-tolled roads.

Tolled expressways zigzag across dense suburban populations, dividing neighboring

communities and complicating the already complex traveling routes outside of the limited
access highway system. This will hamper efforts to create a fast, efficient and effective
mass transit system for all of us.

If the government can be so generous in allowing more expensive roads and highways to
be build to increase societal benefits of connectivity, why can’t it use a portion of its
pooled resources to support an economical yet integrated mass transit system, which
include all modes of transport including buses, high speed trains, electronic moving units,
monorails and light rail transits, to prevent higher societal costs of congestion?

To illustrate, 30 buses are more than capable to relieve the maximum amount of free flow
traffic that the 1.2 billion ringgit AKLEH (Ampang-KL Elevated Highway) can sustain at
any one time. With combined ‘park-n-ride’ capacity of 10,000, the parking bays in Shah
Alam and Bukit Jalil Stadiums can render all three KESAS, NKVE and ELITE
expressways empty from any private vehicles. These are possible in existence of an
integrated and effective mass rapid transit system under the full power of exclusive
transit authorities to provide sufficient infrastructural and operational support at both
local and federal levels.

*10,000 is the maximum number of fast traveling cars that the combined lanes of the KESAS, NKVE and ELITE expressways can
support at any one time (780km of highway lanes with smooth 100kph traffic speed) , considering the 100 feet (30m) safe traveling
distance (using the 3 second rule under good road conditions) between cars averaging 5m in length and 40kph in speed. AKLEH has
32km of individual traffic lanes, and one double-decker express bus can put 60 cars off road.

LRT expansions will not be able to effectively increase Klang Valley’s overall mass
transit penetration and acceptance due to its limited coverage and slow inbound and
outbound journeys with too many stops. Furthermore, the current limited lines in
downtown areas can’t hold the additional capacity expected by the expansions.

Since we have an excellent network of limited access free flow expressways around
Klang Valley, we can virtually consider these expressways as expressway rapid transit
(ERT) ‘tracks’ with ERT buses as ‘trains’. Bus ‘stations’ can be built on top of these
‘tracks’ at identified strategic transit points with high suburban population, and bus
terminals for suburban feeder bus services together with depots and car parks can be
build inside the suburban area and next to the ERT points so that transit time can be cut
short. Three strategic Kuala Lumpur gateway points for ERT buses can be created at KL
Sentral/MidValley, Imbi and Sentul Timur with dedicated bus ramps to Jalan Travers-
Jalan Duta (heading to NKVE and NPE), KL-Putrajaya, and DUKE expressways
respectively. These gateway points should be conveniently linked to Ampang and Kelana
Jaya LRT Lines, KL Monorail, and high frequency busway rapid transit with limited
routes and dedicated lanes. Dang Wangi LRT Station can be the main gateway point that
caters ERT from Ampang as it sits strategically at the west end point of the AKLEH. To
fill up demand during rush hours, express bus operators should be allowed to bid for
periodical contract to serve as ERT buses.

In a nutshell, all stakeholders of mass transit must take into consideration of the
following in their efforts to improve mass transit in the long term:

Mass transit should not be seen as means of travel for those who can’t afford
private transport anymore, as the entire population can no longer afford to neglect
mass transit
Investment (oftentimes wrongfully implied as subsidy) in mass transit
infrastructure, operations and systems has to be coordinated by transit authorities
with social, economic and environmental wellbeing as the bigger picture
Mass transit infrastructure needs proper support at the local level as the single
biggest mean of accessing public transport is walking, and local council has all of
the means to ensure accessibility and ease of mobility for all sections of the
society, including the disabled, senior citizens, pregnant ladies and young children
Instead of the zero-sum game the current private operators, public-funded
companies (RapidKL and KTMB) and government agencies are playing with,
there must be fair allocation of risks and responsibilities between operators and
authorities, and non-discriminating distribution of tax revenue and fee income to
adequately cover urban population’s transport needs
The government must not abandon the principles of transparency, good
governance and public participation in moving our mass transit forward.

The longer we choose to ignore the problem, the harder for the problem to be cured in the
future. We deserve our rights to get around to where we want to be in a truly shared,
caring manner. Enough of the wild goose chase. Effective, integrated rapid transit is the
answer we must seek from our caretakers. Hopefully the Prime Minister’s surprise visit
indicates a positive sign that the government has the political will to put this country’s
mass transit on the right track.

M Zulkarnain Hamzah
Association for Improvement of Mass Transit (TRANSIT) Klang Valley