Another Dumb Proposal

Reported earlier in Business Times, a board member for the Federal Department of Town and Country Planning suggested a parking charges of up to RM40 per hour should be imposed to reduce the traffic in major city here in Malaysia. 

Picture courtesy of Paultan.org. Click the picture to direct to its article.

No other word to be described for this proposal except dumb. 

Yes I agree that we must do something to handle this issue, but certainly not this one. And as usual these people will compare with other town in other countries which impose high parking charges like in Boston, New York, town in Australia and not to forget Malaysia's close rival, Singapore. I don't know about other places, but now I live in Singapore for work and S$40 per hour is sound to ridiculous for me as reported in Business Times. Hard to believe because I haven't seen even one place so far in Singapore that charge their motorist that high. Even Marina Bay Sands charges S$6 for 1st hour and S$1 for subsequent 30 minutes up to maximum of S$26 from 7am to 7pm.

Now let's look into Singapore public transport infrastructure. Let's compare with what we have in Klang Valley. There is no doubt that the public transport in Singapore is far more better than in Klang Valley. There is almost no reason why I should buy a car or bike here. The charges for my daily commute from home to work is S$1.43 one way by MRT. Not more than S$70 a month. All roads and streets in Singapore are well connected with public transportation that includes MRT, LRT and buses. Go figure with www.streetdirectory.com.sg then you'll know that I'm not talking crap. You can download the apps into your androids or apple. It has been my guidance for the last 7 months. I can go anywhere in Singapore by referring to the apps. 

Before I move to Singapore, I worked in Shah Alam and live in Bukit Mahkota Bangi. Now tell me how the hell I suppose to go to work with public transportation? Forget about the bus I know it is the most unreliable transport as far as I know, instead I have to drive to nearest komuter station which is Bangi, from there take the train to KL Sentral and change the line to Klang. I need to stop at Batu 3 station which I think the nearest to my office. The next problem is how to go to my office which located opposite of Space U8 from the komuter station? See how difficult it is, I hope you got my point. Last weekend, it was my first time to use the komuter from Bangi Station. I spent about 15 minutes to buy one ticket and the machine doesn't accept new notes or coins. The fare was RM2.90 to Bandar Tasik Selatan. I paid RM2 with notes and the RM0.90 have to be paid by coins where the fun part was. I was lucky I carried many coins with me at that times, but I need to re-insert the coins again and again as it has been rejected before the machine could recognize the goddamn coins were genuine. I was sweat like a pig!

Do not forget, I think more than half of the population in KL are living in area outside KL and inaccessible to public transportation. This is the core points. I lived in Germany for few months back in 2011, the public transportation there said to be the best in the world and the fare is cheap and affordable. I couldn't agree more. And in Japan - superb!

I used to work in KL and lived in Putrajaya. Everyday I took the ERL and LRT. Fortunately my office and home were accessible to public transportation. The fare quite expensive though, RM9 one way with ERL and RM1.60 one way with LRT. I have to spend slightly over RM500 a month for the fare. But what the hell, as long as I don't have to go through all the traffic hassle, those people who work in KL should know how bad it is. Look at the picture above, it can drive me insane. 

So please, improve the public transport infrastructure first and then you can talk about imposing high parking ticket. But still RM40 per hour is either just plain ignorance or blood sucker type of people. If there is include with wax and polish the fare still sound ridiculous. That's RM320 a day and RM7680 a month if we assume it charges RM40/hour, if RM40/day that means about RM1000 a month. Do they know 80% families are in the under RM7000 bracket with 55% is under RM4000 - Rating got from Malaysia Insider.

This does not mean I love to work in Singapore, I am more than happy to move in back again if someone willing to pay me at least as much as I get here.