One of the things I hate most about our nation....is the level of inefficiency of our public transportation system...
Imagine...to get from my place to Melaka Sentral it takes almost an hour (if I stupidly ride from the other side of the road where the bus will take me throught one huge round around MITC and back to Bukit Beruang area)....and most of the busses are old and feels as if they're about to fall apart any given time. And they cost RM1.90 for the (barely) air-conditioned busses to get from MMU to Sentral...and if you're unlucky...you'll be stuck for a few hours cuz the damned bus broke down in the middle of the road (happened to me once just the other day...thank goodness William was there to save me :P )
After that...it's 2 1/2 hours ride to KL.
And then there's the 1/2 hour traffic jam to get from Sg. Besi tol to Pudu.
And the 10-15 mins walk to Pasar Seni LRT.
And 25 minutes train ride to my sister's place in Taman Bahagia
And then on one unfortunate day, the 1 hour wait for RapidKL bus from Taman Bahagia to my sister's to come...and the guy at the front of the queue had been waiting 1/2 and hour before I got there.
That's about 5 hours just to get from my house to my sister's...about the same time it takes for me to get from SP-KL
This is prolly one of those 'worst case scenario' days but still...for it to happen....geh. If I had driven, it'd only take me more or less than 2 hours for the same trip, but of course, I'd probably be taking shorter routes...
Still...the stupidness doesn't just stop on the road.
Puduraya is one hell of a hell-hole. Smack in the middle of town...the place often suffers traffic congestion. And one would think that since it's in the middle of town, and Pudu being the 'terminal' for people from all around Malaysia...or rather...a 'transit point'...to have accessibility to our railway services...but noooo....the nearest one is BEHIND Puduraya, at Plaza Rakyat...a godforsaken building which has been an abandoned project since god knows when. Awesome planning ain't it? That you rather have the line joining some stupid abandoned building rather than just on top/beside Pudu. I know it's not too far from Pudu but that's not the point. Since our beloved railway system is almost always unreliable...during one of these times where you have delays or breakdowns and it causes you to have to run for your life to 'chase your bus', that 'little' distance matters.
OK fine...if you insist on saying "But it's still connectable to a rail-line...rite?" ....for one, I dun use the 'STAR' line...more often than not I'll be using the 'Putra' line so I'll have to run 10 mins from Pasar Seni to Pudu anyway. So lets look at some other smartass planning....
Monorail Station at KL Sentral. The station's name is KL Sentral...but to get there, I have to cross the road, then go along a pavement...get up the escalator...THEN only I'm at the KL Sentral building. I mean...it's prolly only another 100-200m worth of rail to connect the damn monorail to the building itself so why is it not done? Cuz it feels freakin damn stupid that KL Sentral that's supposed to be the central point..connection...watever...is not actually connecting all the possible lines when all that needs to be done is another 200m worth of rail....seriously.
Another example...I curse the planners everytime my train stops at Abdullah Hukum station....cuz it freaking overlooks Mid Valley and EVERY FREAKIN TIME my train stops at this station....no one ever boards from, or gets off this station! Okay maybe there are people who use this station early in the morning but I'd say if you just bloody connect this to Mid Valley...SO MANY MORE PPL could use this public service rite? So everytime I wanna go Mid Valley...I have to first get off at KL Sentral...then wait for ages for KTM train to come and THEN only get to Mid Valley. And KTM train is one awful line that at any chance they get...refuse to follow their schedule. Imagine last week during Nats when QJ and I left Mid Valley an hour before our bus, confident that it's plenty of time to relax and slowly get to our busses....the damn service got delayed for half an hour...and as a result we had to run everytime we got off the damn train, and ran all the way from Pasar Seni to Pudu and arriving 5-10 minutes before our bus is scheduled to depart...ONLY to see that our damned bus TOO was late. GEE! So yea...if Putra line was directly connected to Mid Valley...we wouldnt have had to rely on the 'oh so reliable' KTM...
A few days in Singapore is enought to make me curse our transportation system kao kao...Their rail line is so clearly marked and so very awsomely conveniently I'm just....lost for words... <3! style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">
Ah...forgive the....incoherentness of this post...as well as any spelling errors or trouble understanding what I'm trying to convey...cuz it's 5am....and my head's slightly blur (but I can't bloody sleep) and I've been wanting to blog about this for ages....so I just wanted to get it out. Perhaps one day I'll construct it better =.=
On another note, I am and always will be proud of Melaka Sentral's bus station....it's so organized and air-conditioned (tho it's not so cold anymore these days) and stocked with McD and A&W etc etc...but shame that the floor bloody cracks left right and centre (it's actually quite scary...)
5 comments:
i'm amazed with the singapore's public transport. it is very organized. even if u missed the train. u just need to wait for 5 minutes b4 the next train arrived. very convenience.
Not only that...they have 3 major lines that I usually take when I'm there...and when you change from ...say...red to purple line ..you don't have to get out of the station at all! Don't have to 'touch and go' with the ticket..they'll auto deduct based an your exit...
we malaysia here...kena keluar stesen, lintang jalan hampir kena langgar kreta...kena hujan dan matahari..baru dapat go to the other line punya stesen...bodoh siut!
you know, putra LRT started operating in 1998. while mid valley 1999. you can't really blame the planner for not connecting it to mid valley. Like, how're you supposed to connect it to something that's not even there yet? Blame MV developer for not building it right next to abdullah hukum then.
Also, monorail came 2 years after Kl sentral. Blame monorail for not having a platform in the sentral or making the 200m worth of rail.
If you curse KL's public transportation, try living in Penang. Geez. I live and move so comfortably in PJ/KL area for 10 years without needing a car. In Penang? Getting to queensbay from nearby housing area probably takes 2 hours.
-Ce-yi
Heh...apologies for not doing my research (while typing that post at 4am in the morning) beforehand.
Yes Putra LRT (phase 1) may have started its operations in September 1998 and Mid Valley launched in November 1999...However, both of them were not planned and built in a day, nor a year.
Projects for Putra LRT had begin way back in 1994, and groundworks for Mid Valley City had begun in 1995...which in my opinion, gives them plenty of time to reconsider their routes, or even re-routing to accommodate an area which will most likely have more traffic compared to Abdullah Hukum.
As for KL Sentral and Monorail. KL Sentral's contract was awarded back in 1994, opened in 2001. Construction of Monorail began in 1997 and it opened in 2003. Yes, Monorail came after Sentral...so why couldn't they apply to extend another 140m of rail to Sentral, apply to have a platform/station there so people won't have to cross the road and along the pathway (which initially were uncovered). Yes maybe money was an issue (for Sentral to have to renovate its building to suddenly accommodate another station, I can't imagine it to be very cheap) and putting the station away from Sentral was prolly more cost efficient tho maybe not for the best interest of the public...but for the government to see this happening (IF they did see it) and not do a thing about it? ...real smart rite?...I'm not saying its only the government's fault that makes our public transport so inefficient (when it could have been so much more efficient)...it's prolly Sentral's fault..its prolly Monorail's fault...who knows? There's prolly been some discussions between them that we do not know of but bottomline is - its inefficient...AND silly. Some say that the station will be moved to Lot G of KL Sentral, which is in currently progress but it's not exactly in the development plans so I suppose we can only wait and see...(even if they're just making an indoor pedestrian crossing that connects KL Sentral to Monorail Station...I'll be happy)
And oh btw...dun get me wrong. I'm not ONLY cursing KL's public transportation...I'm saying the public transport in this nation, in general, sucks. It could have been so much better. Its just that I've experienced KL (and Melaka's) public transportation the most to be able to state my opinions on those two, the most. I'm sure Penang's public transportation is is one hell of a hellhole (especially so when there's no rail line at all in this island) but I'm privileged enough to be able to stay away from it most of the time...thanks to sibling-drivers.
Oh yeah...I lived without a car for the past..say..10-20 years of my life? Oh wait...I still dun have a car. So if I wanna get anywhere, I'll have to depend on friends and family to ferry me around and if they're all busy...well...I'll just take the public transport and ±30minutes (or more) to my trip plans cuz most of them dun bloody follow the scheduled time.
Public transportation in this nation is probably at its best in PJ/KL region. I'm not saying the ones there sucks terribly....its just that they could definitely be more efficient and perform better with the infrastructure and technology that we have.
Lol, to be fair, the LRT station is a mere 10 minutes walk from my place in PJ. So the entire KL/PJ is like my backyard. Been using the LRT ever since it started operating so it really feels so torturous for me to live in Penang, even with a car. I just hate the traffic and drivers there so much. KL is like a heaven in comparison.
Can't WAIT to stay in KL again.
-Ce-yi
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