Will KL become Jakarta or Singapore?
In an opinion piece in the New York Times, author Tash Aw tries to navigate through the problems and prospects of KL’s increasingly tangled traffic.
KUALA LUMPUR: The amount of time commuters here spend every year doing nothing in their cars costs the equivalent of more than a month’s average wage.
Quoting a 2015 World Bank report, an op-ed piece in the New York Times by Malaysian author Tash Aw says Kuala Lumpur residents waste up to 500 million hours of work a year idling in traffic and burning up to 1.2 billion litres of fuel.
These losses are estimated to exceed 2 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product.
Saying traffic dominates the daily lives of those who live and work in the Klang Valley, Aw adds that people have become accustomed to their dinner guests’ arriving an hour late and that parents wake their children earlier than ever to ensure they get to school on time.
“As Malaysia navigates its way from developing country to middle-class-nation status, the battle of its capital city against worsening traffic will play a crucial role in shaping the country’s 21st-century identity.
“Next to its regional neighbours, will it be a choking urban sprawl (think Jakarta) or a hyper-efficient, sustainable metropolis (think Singapore)?”
Saying the traffic nightmare is largely caused by Malaysians love affair with the automobile, Aw notes that car ownership in Malaysia is among the highest in the world.
The latest Nielsen Global Survey of Automotive Demand found that car ownership in Malaysia stands at 93 per cent, placing it third in the world. The country also has the highest incidence of multiple car ownership globally with 54 per cent of households having more than one car.
Also, seven out of 10 Malaysian respondents, or 71 per cent, told Nielsen they intended to buy cars within the next two years, while 88 per cent said they would upgrade their vehicles when financially able. About 62 per cent of Malaysians viewed cars as status symbols.
In Kuala Lumpur alone, about 1,000 new cars are registered every day.
“Getting these newly middle-class drivers out of their status symbols and onto public transportation is a monumental task, further complicated by the sprawling nature of the suburbs and the network of smaller conurbations that make up greater Kuala Lumpur.
“In any case, a severe lack of options in mass transit — with especially poor rail connections outside the metropolitan area — makes travelling by private car the only choice for many journeys. Only 20 per cent of trips in the capital are made by public transportation,” says Aw.
He points out some of the measures being taken by the authorities to resolve the traffic problem, including the construction of the Mass Rapid Transit.
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At stake, he says, is not just the daily grumbling of Kuala Lumpur’s motorists, but the city’s future as a competitive, liveable city.