People-centred urban model will be Malaysia’s most pro-rakyat reform

 Continuing to prioritise highways risks locking in rising household costs.

From Boo Jia Cher

For decades, the Malaysian dream has been sold with striking consistency: a suburban home, two cars, and a highway promising a smooth 20-minute commute into the city.

By 2026, that promise feels increasingly hollow. For many middle-class households, the reality is a 90-minute crawl along tolled expressways, draining both time and income before the workday even begins.

This widening gap between aspiration and lived reality reveals a deeper truth about how cities in Malaysia have been designed.

What has long been framed as a “practical” development model – wide highways, dispersed housing, and near-total car dependence – is in fact an expensive system that shifts costs onto ordinary people. Rather than neutral infrastructure, it functions as an extraction mechanism embedded into daily life.

Extraction disguised as practicality

Pedestrian-friendly planning is often dismissed locally as an unrealistic luxury suited only to cooler climates. Sceptics frequently point to cities like Tokyo, Barcelona or Paris, arguing that Malaysia’s heat makes such models impractical.

Yet the real issue is not climate, but economics.

Malaysia’s urban form is structurally car-dependent. Mobility is treated less as a public service than a private financial obligation. When housing is built far from reliable transit, the costs of movement shift directly onto households through vehicle loans, fuel, insurance, maintenance, and toll payments.

The hidden costs of car dependence

For many families, maintaining one or more cars consumes a large share of monthly income.

This burden is embedded even in housing design. Multi-storey parking podiums, now standard in Malaysian condominiums, significantly inflate property prices. Buyers end up financing parking infrastructure through decades-long mortgages, paying interest on structures that would be far less necessary in transit-oriented environments.

Toll highways reinforce the same cycle. Each tap of a toll card represents a steady transfer of household income into concession systems, costs that exist largely because viable alternatives remain limited.

This contradiction is visible even in affordable housing planning. A recent Bandar Madani housing cluster in Bukit Jalil is designed primarily around access to the Kesas Expressway without public transport nearby, effectively assuming car ownership as a baseline cost of living. Efforts meant to reduce housing costs risk entrenching transportation expenses instead.

Unequal impacts on workers

Car-dominated urban environments also shape livelihoods unevenly.

Gig-economy delivery riders, now ubiquitous across Malaysian cities, navigate high-speed traffic with minimal protection, facing heightened risks during congestion and heavy rain. Motorcyclists account for the majority of road fatalities nationwide.

By contrast, cities prioritising calmer denser streets, protected cycling infrastructure, and integrated last-mile connections allow such workers to move more safely and cheaply, even enabling a shift from motorcycles to far more affordable bicycles.

Household and social consequences

For the average household, the ability to live without depending on a car could free substantial monthly income; funds that could support childcare, education, healthcare, or savings.

Car-centric environments also disproportionately isolate older adults and people with disabilities. When mobility depends entirely on driving, independence declines sharply once driving becomes difficult. Walkable environments allow access to daily life regardless of vehicle ownership.

The cost to urban space and well-being

The consequences extend beyond finances.

Car-oriented planning produces cities with limited public spaces, where shopping malls become default social hubs. Many Malaysians increasingly lament the lack of parks alongside an oversupply of malls, raising questions about whose interests shape urban development.

Time lost in traffic erodes productivity, while vast asphalt surfaces intensify urban heat-island effects. Pedestrian-oriented cities, by contrast, integrate shaded streets, greenery, and shared public spaces that improve environmental, social, and economic outcomes simultaneously.

A policy choice, not a cultural preference

These realities challenge a long-held political assumption: that Malaysians inherently prefer car-centric lifestyles. In truth, many do not choose to drive, they simply lack viable alternatives. Dependence should not be mistaken for preference.

Urban policy decisions in the coming years will carry lasting consequences. Continuing to prioritise highways risks locking in rising household costs and environmental strain.

Shifting towards transit-integrated planning, densification, safer pedestrian infrastructure, and accessible public spaces would represent not a luxury reform, but a redistributive one, reducing hidden expenses that weigh most heavily on middle- and lower-income households.

Ultimately, a question of political will

The central question facing Malaysia is not whether it can replicate European or Japanese cities, but whether it can design urban environments that better serve everyday people.

Transformations like Barcelona’s were not accidental; they resulted from deliberate policies treating mobility as a public good rather than a private burden.

Malaysia now stands at a similar crossroads. Policymakers widely recognise these challenges, yet hesitation often stems from fear of political backlash.

Even transport minister Loke Siew Fook, a strong proponent of public transport, rejected limiting car access into Kuala Lumpur’s city centre despite chronic congestion.

But meaningful reform rarely begins from comfort. It requires coordination, sustained political courage, and a willingness to make decisions that may seem unpopular in the short term.

In the long run, however, few reforms would be more pro-rakyat than building cities that cost less to live in, move through and thrive within. - FMT

 Boo Jia Cher is an FMT reader.

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