Less than 3% against Penang LRT project, official survey shows

The 30km LRT project will link Komtar to the airport in the south at a cost of RM8.5 billion.

GEORGE TOWN: The Penang government today announced it had received overwhelming support for the proposed Bayan Lepas Light Rail Transit (LRT) project.

It said 97% of 23,218 people who participated in the three-month public inspection of the project plan were for it.

The public inspection is a federal government requirement before the project can be carried out.

Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow said of the 23,218 people who wrote their responses on feedback papers at the display booths, 22,678 supported the project, while 540 others, or 2.3%, objected.

“This indicates the measure of support from the public. We will now respond to the queries raised in these forms,” he said at a press conference in Komtar today.

Chow said among the queries raised were the location of stations and concerns about traffic during construction. He said this was raised not just by those objecting but others as well.

He said the responses would be submitted to the Land Public Transport Agency (APAD) and that they would then wait for the final approval for the LRT project.

The public feedback on the LRT project has been a cause of concern for NGO Penang Forum, which claimed the questions were engineered to garner a positive response.

The state government, however, denied this, saying the questions were made to elicit a response as to whether they liked the LRT project or not.

The 30km LRT project will link Komtar to the airport in the south at a cost of RM8.5 billion. The project was recently approved by regulators but has yet to begin, pending the public inspection.

It will be financed through the creation and sale of three artificial islands to the south.

The projects are under the Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP), costing RM46 billion, which will see the construction of highways, rail lines and other modes of public transport over the next 20 to 30 years.

NGOs said the LRT might suffer from low ridership, given Penang’s population. They said other smaller systems such as the Bus Rapid Transit or the newer ART (autonomous rail transit) — a train-bus hybrid — were better and more cost-effective.

However, one NGO, Anak Pinang, said the LRT was better in the long run as it would be elevated and was a proven and reliable system. - FMT