Monday, September 24, 2007

Jams aplenty

Syed Nadzri wrote in his column in NST today that the number of registered vehicles in Malaysia is 15.7 million or 1 vehicle to every 1.6 person in the country. But I believe the figure in the Klang Valley is very much higher. Drive along any housing estate and you can see that an average house has 2 or 3 cars parked in their driveway. In the bungalows area, you find that the average is about 5 cars per household. No wonder there are jams aplenty.

However, many local authorities when approving plan require car parks provisions when their target is to encourage lesser cars coming to the cities. We should learn for the developed countries that all project contribute to the public transport improvement fund by levying the developer according to the net area developed - not asking them to provide car parks. When there are no car parks in the cities, then people will think twice before bringing their cars into the cities. Build more park and ride facilites in the suburbs.