Are you switching to public transport? Part 2

And if you notice, some of the problems found in the bus service listed above are exactly happened in third world countries.

I remember two decades ago when I was still studying in schools in JB. I could easily travel around Singapore without any help from others, except a bus guide from SBS. The bus guide was printed so systematically that everybody knows:
- when does the bus start and stop operating
- what number to take to our destinations
- what numbers and at which interchange to change number if there is no direct bus
- how to alight and aboard at the bus stop number accurately
- how to calculate bus fare based on bus stop number

So now I just want to ask our KL city folks and the Menteri-menteri, do we have a bus guide? It looks like we are still 20 years behind our neighbor in the southern tip! And we are now about only 14 years away from Vision 2020 – an advanced country. What’s more, in fact Selangor has been declared the first developed state in the nation, but we don’t even have a bus guide for our omni bus system!

Of course the government can always encourage (or rather force) the people to use the public transport by imposing heavier tax or city zoning levy like ERP in Singapore. However, things will not work barely because of these “pushing” factors, as if the “pulling” factors from the public transport system are in fact chasing away the city dwellers. The people here would rather spend more to buy the convenience. The city planner should go back a step and redraw their objective. Are they merely providing a transport system to fetch people from point A to point B regardless of efficiency and service, or providing convenience to the people?

Back to our conversation in the room, some people would rather switch to motorbikes, or drive a smaller cc vehicle, but definitely no no to public transport. Public transport is the last resort! So the conclusion is, unless the government seriously and also has the urgency to improve the public transport system, with commitment from top to bottom, otherwise I can foresee that it will still remain the same state after 10 years from now.

Related stories:
More resorting to public transport [The Star 1-Mar-2006 ]
PM: We have to sacrifice [The Star 1-Mar-2006 ]
Govt: No fare hike for public transport [The Star 1-Mar-2006 ]
Savings to go into public transport [The Star 2-Mar-2006 ]