MALAYSIA: Govt Urged to Rethink Transport Policy

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Anil Netto

PENANG, Malaysia, Sep 13 2001 (IPS) - Without an integrated urban transport policy, Malaysia’s roads are teeming with private vehicles, but lack public transportation, an alarming trend that needs fixing, say experts.

Confirming widespread suspicions, a transport planner has revealed that vehicle density on the roads of Malaysia’s northern state of Penang has far outstripped that in Hong Kong and Singapore.

The revelation by Ganesh Rasagam at a transport seminar here supports a long-held belief that Malaysia’s urban centres are among the most vehicle-dependent in Asia.

This trend is likely the result of a combination of factors: the promotion of the national cars, vested interests in the construction of more roads and tolled highways, and a lack of political will and coordination in promoting public transport.

Penang’s 561 vehicles per kilometre of road last year was more than double Singapore’s 223 vehicles and Hong Kong’s 271, said Ganesh, who also serves as a consultant for a development agency in Malaysia.

Despite being only half the size of Singapore, Penang had 1.1 million registered vehicles compared with Singapore’s 693,000 vehicles and Hong Kong’s 517,000, he pointed out. Throughout Malaysia, the number of vehicles rose from 6.8 million in 1995 to 10.5 million in June 2001.

Ironically, both Penang and Singapore had similar vehicle densities of almost 16 vehicles per kilometre in 1975, Ganesh added. “However, traffic restraint initiatives and an efficient public transport system were introduced in Singapore around that time,” he observed, and since then the rise in vehicle dependence in the nation-state has tapered off.

Malaysia’s headlong rush into greater private vehicle ownership has overwhelmed its capacity to build more roads, interchanges, flyovers and bridges. The total road network in the country rose from 61,380 km in 1995 to 65,880 km last year.

Thanks to the national car projects and easy payment terms, more and more people are able to afford cars. “There seems to be some confusion over whether our goal is to create a caring society or a car-ing society,” observed Anwar Fazal of the Malaysian Friends of the Earth (SAM) society, wryly.

SAM, together with the Consumers Association of Penang, jointly organised a four-day transport seminar dubbed ‘Changing Directions: Towards Sustainable Transport in Malaysia’ which ended on Sep. 10

Speaking at the seminar, sustainable transport activist Paul Barter confirmed Ganesh’s warning of growing private vehicle dependency. In the area around Kuala Lumpur, the Klang Valley, for instance, there are 68 metres of expressway length per 1,000 people, he pointed out.

Though that may be still below the levels found in most cities in the United States, where 100-200 metres per 1,000 people is common, Barter pointed out that “the spatial density of the Klang Valley’s expressway network is already higher than those found in most North American cities and is comparable with many Western European cities.”

One of the key factors driving more Malaysians to own private vehicles is the lack of viable options especially integrated, accessible and affordable public transport systems.

In official circles, no ministry or department takes full responsibility for public transport – neither is there any meaningful coordination.

Transport policy formation comes under the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) of the Prime Minister’s Department and the Transport Ministry. Road network and major infrastructure fall under the Works Ministry. Licensing of buses and taxies is under the ambit of the Entrepreneur Development Minister. The Commercial Vehicles Licensing Board, for its part, decides on the number of buses and their routes.

“The state government and local authorities therefore have no formal authority or role in public transport (except for regulating trishaws!),” said Ganesh.

The fragmentation of transport planning and management has to be resolved before the state and local authorities can adopt any integrated urban transport policy, he said, adding that community participation and involvement in transport planning was vital.

There is also a clear lack of focus and political will in stressing public transport. This was perhaps reflected in the paper presented by the Transport Ministry at the seminar: in a 21-page paper on the state of transport in Malaysia, only one sentence dealt with public transport.

Instead, vested and intertwining political and economic interests û- especially in the road and bridge construction industry and the national car projects -û have led to more roads, which invariably are rapidly filled with more cars and motorcycles.

Many Penang residents are already alarmed by plans for a new 22- km long bridge to link Malaysia’s Silicon Island with the mainland peninsula. Commuters already have the choice of a ferry service and the existing Penang Bridge and activists worry that an additional gateway will mean more traffic pouring in to further choke the island’s narrow streets.

South of the peninsula, officials are planning a new bridge to link Johor state to Singapore. A causeway and an under-utilised Second Link bridge currently connects the two countries – but once the new bridge is completed, the causeway will be demolished. The plans have prompted an outcry among those who say there is nothing wrong with the existing causeway.

Activist Vanitha Ponnusamy of the Urban Resource Unit, a group that monitors evictions especially in the Klang Valley, observed that transport infrastructure is a major source of evictions. Those evicted, she said, “are disproportionately from among the most vulnerable groups in society and tend to have particularly weak housing tenure.”

Increasing vehicle dependency also eats into Malaysia’s energy resources and its crude oils reserves, which are expected to last another 14 years. The transport sector, which is the biggest polluter, consumes some 42 percent of final energy demand, surpassing even industrial use (38 percent), revealed officers from the Malaysia Energy Center in a paper.

All of these concerns make it even more vital for Malaysia to turn to public transport –to serve all social classes and not just the low-income group — and to non-motorised transport options like cycling and walking.

“Many transport planners are going further to refocus their efforts away from a preoccupation with maximising mobility towards a new goal of maximising access,” said Barter, a university professor in Singapore.

This means integrating accessibility planning goals into land- use “planning for proximity” and promoting mixed land (residential and commercial) uses. It would also involve discouraging low-density sprawls and intense development in locations that are difficult for public transport to serve.

Officials in Malaysia will have to think and act fast before increasing private vehicle ownership and new highways ‘lock in’ vehicle dependence, making it even more difficult to reverse this alarming trend.