Penang mulls Botanic Gardens-Penang Hill cable car project
Plan revived after RM100 million allocation in 2020 Budget.
GEORGE TOWN: Penang is studying a proposal to build a cable car connecting the Botanic Gardens to the summit of Penang Hill, following a RM100 million allocation in the 2020 Budget.
Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow said the cable car alignment being studied is from the Rifle Club at the gardens to the entrance of the habitat park on the hill’s summit.
He said the cable car system would have eight to 10 pylons according to its early plans.
“The idea was mooted by the finance minister (Lim Guan Eng) when he was the chief minister,” he said, adding that the Penang Hill Corporation (PHC) had applied for the allocation.
“Surprisingly, and maybe not surprisingly, it has been approved. But, as I have been quoted before, allocation of funds does not mean a go-ahead,” he said at a public transport forum hosted by the Malaysian International Chamber of Commerce and Industry here today.
The budget proposals announced by Lim last Friday allocated RM100 million for the cable car project, with additional costs to be borne by the state. The project is to reduce traffic on the funicular railway to the hilltop.
Chow said PHC had appointed a local consultant to conduct a pre-feasibility study of the project.
“This is to see if it is viable. Before this, other alignments had been toyed around, such as Penang Hill to Teluk Bahang, but at the moment, we are looking at connecting the Botanic Gardens and the hill,” he said.
Tourism players have lauded the federal government’s move to help realise the project, saying it would spur economic growth and boost tourist arrivals.
However, detractors say the project would ruin pristine rainforests and have vowed to fight against it.
Among them is Friends of Penang Hill, an informal group of activists who had fought against the cable car idea in the late 1980s.
The group is said to have cost former chief minister Dr Lim Chong Eu his seat. The project was then scrapped by the then Barisan Nasional government.
The group’s spokeswoman, Meenakshi Raman, had said it was ready to hold the “Save Penang Hill” protest once again if the cable car project went ahead.
She said the hill did not have the “carrying capacity”, with the present number going up at an average of 5,000 people a day, calculated based on two million arrivals a year.
It was also reported that the hilltop could hold a maximum of 4,800 people a day, based on Special Area Plan documents.
PHC had said the cable car project, if implemented, would involve very little tree cutting, and the latest technology would allow the environment to be largely unaffected.
Penang-Seberang Perai cable car project still on
Separately, Chow said another cable car project dubbed “SkyCab” connecting the island and Seberang Perai was still on track, with minor adjustments to the alignment.
He said the adjustment involves the shifting of the station from Noordin Street Ghaut, George Town, to “somewhere close to the ferry terminal” near the disused Tanjung City Marina.
“The station will take up very little space,” he said.
Chow said the project’s proponents, Malaysian Resources Corporation Berhad (MRCB), had been given the approval from environmental regulators to proceed a long time ago.
The 5km SkyCab project, with 40 cabins transporting 1,000 people every hour, was proposed to connect George Town to Penang Sentral in Butterworth. Penang Sentral is located near Penang Port Sdn Bhd’s North Butterworth Container Terminal.
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It was supposed to have been completed in 2018.