When transport policies are a walking contradiction

Until the first-mile hitch is fixed, Malaysians will continue driving to stations not because they prefer to but because the system leaves them little real choice.

From Wan Agyl Wan Hassan

Every weekday morning in the Klang Valley, the contradiction of Malaysia’s transport policy is on full display.

By 7.30am, most LRT, MRT and KTM Komuter station car parks are already full. By 8am, cars spill onto curbsides and residential streets.

Feeder buses are forced to crawl between illegally parked vehicles. Pedestrians walk between bumpers and moving traffic. Residents are furious. Commuters are anxious about being late.

This is not a few bad drivers misbehaving.

This is a system failure playing out in public.

Malaysia has spent more than RM120 billion building rail infrastructure in the Klang Valley. We now have one of the most extensive urban rail systems in Southeast Asia. Yet for thousands of commuters, the most stressful part of the journey is not the train ride; it is simply to reach the station.

Feeder buses remain unreliable and infrequent. Some arrive every 30 to 60 minutes. Many are delayed by congestion. Walking routes are broken, poorly lit, or unsafe. Cycling infrastructure is largely absent.

For working parents, shift workers, seniors and low-income commuters, these are not minor inconveniences. They are daily mobility barriers.

As a result, commuters do what any rational person under time pressure would do; they drive.

Not because they love to drive. Not because they enjoy searching for parking or risking fines. But because driving is the only option that consistently gets them onto the train on time.

And when they arrive, a second policy failure greets them; parking saturation.

At high-demand stations, legal parking reaches full capacity early every morning. Late arrivals are pushed into illegal kerbside parking. In Glenmarie and Ara Damansara, roads designed for traffic flow are narrowed daily by roadside parking.

In Taman Tun Dr Ismail, residential streets now operate as free day-long commuter parking. In Sungai Buloh and Kajang, overflow spills into industrial access roads and mixes dangerously with heavy vehicles.

These are no longer isolated local irritations. They are structural mobility failures that affect safety, neighbourhood liveability and economic productivity.

Yet the dominant policy instinct remains dangerously shallow; “just build more parking”.

This approach has already failed.

Every new car park fills up almost immediately because it does not change travel behaviour. It merely absorbs continued car dependency.

Land near stations is too scarce and too valuable to be sacrificed endlessly for car storage. If this continues, Malaysia will end up with modern rail lines surrounded by parking fortresses, while genuine walkable, transit-oriented communities remain promotional concepts rather than lived spaces.

The real driver of this crisis is not commuter attitude. It is policy distortion.

Fuel remains subsidised. Parking at stations is cheap. The cost of driving feels artificially low. Meanwhile, the cost of feeder buses is paid in waiting time, missed trains, physical discomfort under heat and rain, and daily uncertainty.

When commuters calculate their real risks, driving still feels cheaper not in ringgit, but in reliability.

Worse still, where enforcement is inconsistent, illegal parking becomes a rational gamble instead of a deterrent.

This is where public trust begins to erode.

Globally, cities that succeed with rail do not treat station access as an afterthought. In Singapore, people walk through sheltered networks to reach trains, supported by strict car ownership controls.

In Hong Kong, millions live directly above stations, eliminating first-mile travel altogether. In the Netherlands, half of train passengers cycle to stations using protected infrastructure supported by massive bike-parking facilities.

The Klang Valley has chosen none of these models fully.

Instead, governance is fragmented. Rail operators manage what happens inside stations. Local councils control what happens outside. Enforcement is split. Accountability is diffused. No single authority is responsible for making sure commuters can reach the station safely, legally and reliably.

The result is what we see today; kerbside chaos masquerading as normality.

Pilot programmes now exist; on-demand feeder vans, limited bus priority measures. These are welcome. But they remain tactical patches on a structurally broken first-mile system. Without decisive intervention, they will remain side projects rather than systemic solutions.

If the government is serious about getting value from its rail investment, three uncomfortable reforms can no longer be postponed.

First, first-mile reliability must be treated as core rail infrastructure, not a peripheral service. Feeder buses need dedicated priority near stations, shorter headways and protections from traffic caused by illegal parking.

Second, parking must be actively managed, not quietly subsidised into daily overflow. High-demand stations require tiered pricing, real-time parking availability and firm enforcement within clearly designated transit zones. Without credible enforcement, illegal kerbside parking will never stop.

Third, station areas must be rebuilt for people, not vehicles. Shaded walkways, continuous sidewalks, lighting, cycling access and sharply reduced parking ratios near stations must become mandatory, not optional. Otherwise, transit-oriented development will remain a branding exercise rather than a behavioural shift.

When Malaysians are forced to fight for illegal kerbside spaces just to board a train, this is not a failure of personal discipline. It is a failure of transport policy design and execution.

Until the first mile is fixed, Malaysians will continue driving to stations not because they prefer to but because the system leaves them little real choice.

And the true ceiling of our rail network will not be set by how far the tracks run.

It will be set by how wide our kerbs can still accommodate failure. - FMT

Wan Agyl Wan Hassan is the founder and CEO of MY Mobility Vision, a transport think tank.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.