KUALA LUMPUR (March 22): Finally, with funding from the federal government, a tender will soon be called to bid for the first Penang LRT project which was proposed and pushed by the SRS consortium that will also reclaim the Silicon Island, south of Penang island. 

It should be pointed out that the Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP) formulated by Halcrow and approved by the Penang state government in 2013 did not recommend LRT as a mode of public transport. What were recommended were trams and buses that are more flexible and economical.

Recently we witnessed the discussion of the merits and demerits of the LRT against other much cheaper systems currently available such as the hydrogen-powered autonomous rail transit (ART) that is currently being implemented in Kuching.

Here, I would like to raise a fundamental question — why is the Penang state government obstinately  sticking to LRT as the preferred mode of public transport?

A bit of history is in order.

In 2016, transport engineers at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) were engaged to do a technical peer review of the SRS proposals. Unfortunately the USM team was denied possession of the most critical multimodal transport planning software that contains the basic parameters and assumptions such as  population projections, expected ridership etc to help justify why a particular transit system was recommended. Other important reviews not carried out in 2016 were the financial viability study and the long-term operational and maintenance requirements for the three different transit systems proposed by SRS — LRT, monorail and tram.

The Penang state government, which claims to focus on competency, accountability and transparency (its CAT mantra) should have done what Singapore did in 1980, which is encouraging robust internal and public debates as well as feedback on its proposed MRT transit systems before implementing it.  Instead, the Penang state government has insistently promoted the LRT as pushed by SRS. Why?

For those in the corporate sector and familiar with how things work, let us review how and why some major projects got implemented in Penang:

1) The first Penang Bridge was designed to last over a hundred years. Yet barely 25 years later, its steel cables and box girders were all replaced by a French company at a cost of RM150 million because it claimed the original cables were overstressed beyond design limits.

2) Also the first Penang Bridge was already designed for widening from four to six lanes when required. Yet additional piles on both sides of the bridge were added to bring the contract sum to RM580 million. 

3) The new multi-story car park in Penang Airport. Despite knowing that there are plans to locate a public transit system station adjoining the airport, this new car park was built beside the airport preventing future location of the transit station next to the airport. Furthermore, the car park was built without linking it to the airport. And as an afterthought, a complicated undercarriage steel structure supporting the link bridge is now being constructed.

4) What about the costly lessons with all the Klang Valley transit systems eventually having to be bailed out by the government at the cost of billions of ringgit shouldered by Malaysian taxpayers? 

Penang should have learned from both the Singapore and Klang Valley experiences. In fact, the Penang state government should have used the lull period since 2016 to perform due diligence to have the PTMP reviewed by independent consultants as regards both the technical and financial aspects as pointed out above.

Now that we have the RM10 billion financing from the federal government, I strongly urge Penang state government to appoint independent consultants to review and recommend the most suitable transit system for Penang.

So why would any right-thinking person object to such an independent review?

Lim Thean Heng is a former chief transport engineer for the Penang state government.