NGOs urged to come up with concrete alternative proposals on road level trams

GEORGE TOWN: Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) appointed to the Penang Transport Council (PTC) have been urged to come up with concrete alternative proposals based on their insistence to have (road level) trams instead of elevated rail systems.

State Local Government, Traffic Management and Flood Mitigation Committee chairman Chow Kon Yeow said the NGOs have started a signature campaign against elevated rail options.

He said the terms of reference (TOR) to come up with an alternative financial architecture to fund the Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP) was not even completed but there was already a preconception that trams were better.

He said the state government was not an adversary of the NGOs and thus have even showed the classified documents on the Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP) to them.
"We want to put the record straight. We invited them to the PTC. We expected them to come up with a concrete alternative proposal that we can adopt," he said in a media briefing on the PTMP today with Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and project delivery partner (PDP) SRS Consortium project director Szeto Wai Loong.

On the state appearing to favour the elevated options over road level systems, Chow said those campaigning for trams were picking an choosing facts to fit their assumptions.

He said the oft cited figure of RM80million per km for trams did not include the costs to relocate utilities, land acquisition costs and environmental approval costs among other outlays.

He noted land acquisition costs were high and that that trams would have to share space with existing traffic if acquiring land was not done.

"I think I, Chow Kon Yeow and Lim Guan Eng, will not want to have our names identified with a system, where in the future, whenever there is an accident involving car and trams, it is Chow Kon Yeow and Lim Guan Eng that built the
system," he quipped.

On the proposed Light Rail Transit (LRT) line between Bayan Lepas and George Town, the first project under the PTMP, Chow said he will be meeting with Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) chairman Tan Sri Syed Hamid Syed Jaafar Albar in September.

"We want to address issues, if any, regarding the conditional approval for the line," he added.