Pay More To Drive Into Kuala Lumpur

This is only applicable those Kuala Lumpur ("KL") working folks and especially if you drive to work.

The Land Public Transport Bill 2010 will introduce the "area congestion pricing scheme". It's something like the pay as you drive hehe but it's not going to be a laughing matter when it's implemented.

Firstly, most KL working folks are forced to take those tolled roads coming into KL city centre. Why forced? Because the government didn't build those roads but allowed the private sectors to take over. A friend of mine will always say "you pay toll to get into a traffic jam at a faster rate".

This so called Land Public Transport Bill 2010 will come under the purview of a new division, the Land Public Transport Commission / Suruhanjaya Pengangkutan Awam Darat (also known as SPAD in short).

I like the way the government is trying to justify this new pricing scheme, not new as they tried to moot this before but under a different name only, by saying that Singapore and London have similar schemes and if they can, Malaysia Boleh also.

But the numskulls didn't compare other factors such as the good transportation system at those two places. In Singapore, even if you see the bus that you need to board leaving the bus stop/station, you need not worry as the next bus will come along the way within the next five minutes. In Malaysia, you have the faintest idea of when the next bus will come.

Singapore's MRT and London's Tube do not breakdown as often as KL's LRT.

KL tried to allocate a bus/taxi lane on certain roads for the public transportation to travel at a faster rate but many private cars used it at the same time. No enforcement here.

Friends coming from faraway places like Shah Alam, Klang, Kajang, Seremban complained that the buses or trains are sooooooooo congested and irregular timing/schedule really pissed them off.

Government tried to encourage the car pooling idea. I have a colleague working in the same group of companies in the same building. Our job demands are quite different and if one party was to work late, what about the other person. What if you need to go off urgently during mid day due to personal reason?

How do you expect people not to drive into KL then?

Give us the reasons, not one, but many reasons to leave our cars behind.

It has been mentioned many many times that the public transportation has to improve at a sky high rate otherwise any ideas/schemes to charge (penalise lah in a way) cars being driven into the city centre is incomprehensible.

The government did mention that by reducing the subsidy for petrol prices will not only cause the petrol prices to rise up but the money saved will be pumped into improving the public transportation. Who said this? It was the previous prime minister. Has the money been spent on improving then?

Or it was used to buy dozens of non-functioning buses that were then left to rot away in the end? (referring to two articles found in Bernama and Malaysia Today)

I'm not against the new scheme but please show me that the public transportation is worthed my time travelling in it.

And if you KL working folks are going to keep quiet from today onwards, you have disqualified yourself from complaining when the scheme is finally implemented in due course.

When will you know about how much you would need to pay if bill's approved? Bill will be tabled next Monday!
Tags: Land Public Transport Bill 2010, Area Congestion Pricing Scheme, Land Public Transport Commission, SPAD, Pay As You Drive, MRT, Tube, LRT, Public Transportation, Suruhanjaya Pengangkutan Awam Darat