Why worry about 20 sen?

 

The residential estate where I'm living has not had a bus service for the past ten years. You will need to walk at least three or four kilometres to the nearest bus stand. How many would actually be wiling to walk 45 minutes to catch a bus to work, and do the same the other way in the evening? 

Lim Mun Fah, Sin Chew Daily 

I have not yet finished with my "story" yesterday. Well; it took me two long hours to get through the immigration into JB, but after we drove into a housing estate, we saw long queues of vehicles in front of a gas station at a road junction.

My daughter reacted, "Why so many cars here? Is the petrol price going up again?"

She was indeed right, as the petrol price would go up again after midnight. RON95 and diesel would be 20 sen dearer and motorists jostled to fill up their petrol tanks before it struck twelve, a phenomenon omnipresent on the eve of each petrol price hike.

To be honest, the latest price hike is well within everyone's expectation. With the cloud of war looming over Syria and the ensuing energy market panic, it is natural that international oil prices will go up.

To make things worse, the recent depreciation of ringgit and downward adjustment of our sovereign rating have put the national economy on a real test. With the government now taking very tough stance on illegal migrant workers, life is not going to get any easier in near future.

Sure enough the rising costs of doing business will eventually be transferred to the consumers. Each and everyone of us has to face the the music. If you can save a few dimes, why not?

But, some of the costs simply cannot be saved. I would very much like to leave my car behind and take a public bus to work, but will it really work?

The residential estate where I'm living has not had a bus service for the past ten years. You will need to walk at least three or four kilometres to the nearest bus stand. How many would actually be wiling to walk 45 minutes to catch a bus to work, and do the same the other way in the evening?

Government people might tell you. "It's not that bad walking an hour each day. Treat it as an exercise!"

I would tend to think the same way too, but would instantly back off the moment I think about the public security in our city. It's simply not worth putting our lives at stake just to save those few cents.

It appears that we only have our perennially lagging public transportation infrastructure to blame. Our bus services are of undesirable quality; so are our rail services. As for the proposed high speed rail services, we only can pray it would get installed eventually.

Take a look at how other countries are doing their public transport. The public transport systems in Singapore, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong have seen dramatic changes over the last two or three decades. Although they are still not yet perfect, at least the public could look forward to some reliable alternatives.

In Taipei, Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore and Hong Kong, university students commute on high speed trains as their lecturers, while senior government servants and corporate executives line up for buses as ordinary wage earners. In these cities, taking public transport is something perfectly normal and common because public transport is so convenient and you do not need to worry about traffic congestion nor the rising fuel costs.

Unfortunately, our government pumped in billions of ringgit not on improving our public transport but the so-called national automotive industry, resulting in deteriorating traffic snarls. Our bus services remain as primitive as they were decades ago: belching thick fumes, frequent breakdowns and late arrivals.

Our rail services are not getting anywhere either. The rocky journeys at a top speed of only 80kph amidst derailment worries.

More and more cars packing our highways does not mean we are leading better lives today. On the contrary, it only highlights our underdeveloped and out-of-date public transport system.

If we are able to fix up our public transport system, no one would like to empty their meagre savings just to go behind the wheels. Nor will anyone be bothered about the 20-sen increase in petrol price or by how much will the RM500 BR1M be increased.