Story by Danny Ooi
Pix by Lilian Chan
EXCO for Local Government, Traffic Management and Flood Mitigation Chow Kon Yeow on July 22, while thanking the Penang Forum for their suggestions and input, said they could not have a better, cheaper and faster alternative to the Penang Transport Master Plan.
“Their proposed alternative is not viable
and practical,” he added.
Chow, together with the PTMP project delivery partner SRS Consortium’s project director Szeto Wai Loong, pointed out a list of weaknesses in the alternative “better, cheaper, faster” transport plan by the local non-governmental organisation (NGO), including the lack of a funding
plan and impractical proposals.
“Penang Forum wants the best of both worlds — they want faster, cheaper, better.
They want to share roads but all these
proposals are not practical,” Chow told a press conference in Komtar with Szeto and SRS Consortium’s project manager Poh Chin Ching.
Chow said the roads in Penang were not wide enough to allow for sharing between private vehicles and on-the-road trams.
“I believe this will contribute to even more traffic jams as the lanes for cars will
have to be reduced.”
Meanwhile, according to Szeto, the costs of trams was not “cheaper” than the LRT as claimed because the additional space required for the tram lines would mean extra costs to acquire land.
To back his point, Szeto quoted the Edinburgh tram as an example where the original plan was to build an 18.5km track, but only 14km was completed to date due to a funding crisis.
Both Chow and Szeto said the state’s aim was to reach 40% public transport share, but that this will not happen overnight as it takes years for commuters to switch to public transportation.
Chow commented that even if the target is reached, there will still be 60% private vehicles on the road and with trams taking up parts of the roads, this will contribute to even more jams.
“This is the reason why elevated structures for the Light Rapid Transit (LRT) are needed, so that it does not take up several lanes on the road,” he said.
Szeto added that the total project cost of the PTMP is estimated to run up to RM46 billion due to additional components
for the mainland.
“In our proposal, the cost of RM27 billion was according to the Halcrow proposal but after we were made project delivery partner, we had discussions with the state and added more components.
Due to this, the estimated costs increased,”he said.
SRS also listed out the reasons for the Penang South Reclamation plan, the main purpose of which was to fund the PTMP.
“The reclaimed land will belong solely to the state government and the proceeds from the sale of the land via public auction will be used to fund the PTMP,” he said.
Szeto contends that the additional land space will be an economic driver for the
state.
SRS and Chow were responding to a press conference by Penang Forum recently claiming that the state could have implemented a “better, cheaper and faster” transport plan.
The group claimed the state’s PTMP was too expensive and poorly integrated before proposing their alternative plan
consisting mostly of trams and a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).
Penang Forum justified that there was no need to build more highways, but instead to introduce an integrated tramline system complemented by the BRT to minimise cars on the roads.