GEORGE TOWN, Jan 16 — The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system is the cheapest and quickest way to introduce public transport, an international transport systems organisation director said.
The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy country director for Indonesia, Yoga Adiwinarto, said the BRT is the first step towards mass transit.
“It is a great way to bring mass transit forward at a cheaper cost,” he said during a talk titled “The need for Sustainable and Equitable Mobility in Cities”.
Yoga said there needs to be political will to change and make cities more pedestrian and bicycle-friendly.
“In Penang, you have so much space for cars and motorcycles, that the pedestrians practically don’t have rights on the streets,” he said.
He said complete street concepts that allocate spaces for pedestrians, cyclists and buses instead of only cars are the way to go.
“It should not be for cars only but I see here, and in most typical city planning, streets are designed only for cars,” he said.
He noted that there was hardly any space for pedestrians to walk on most streets in Penang, with priority given to cars.
“This needs to change, we have to make sure that pedestrians be given priority,” he said.
He praised Penang’s backlane project and bicycle lane project and hoped they would be further expanded.
He said private vehicles are the least effective method to move people as compared to mass transits systems like BRT.
Yoga said the people must change the way they move around and use their power to make sure government leaders change the way they plan cities.
“Why build cities for cars when cities are for people, not cars so BRT should be considered to move the people,” he said.
When looking at the costs factor, he said BRT is cheaper to implement.
“For US$1 billion (RM4.1 billion), you can build 426km of BRT corridor or 40km LRT or 14km elevated metro or 7km underground subway,” he said.
He used the Transjakarta BRT as an example where US$1.1 billion was spent to cover 225km and which carries 700,000 passengers per day.
In comparison, the Jakarta MRT, due to complete in March, costs RM1.4 billion, covers 16km, took 10 years planning and four years to construct and is expected to carry only 135,000 passengers per day.
He said the cities are better off investing in a BRT system especially when on a tight budget.
“If you look at the BRT in Jakarta, it was fast to build and back in 2004, our city was poor then but still, it was able to build the first BRT in South-east Asia without needing to take up loans to cover the costs,” he said.
The BRT system in Jakarta was built within a 12-month period, he added.
“So if a city has limited budget, they need to spend it wisely, don’t build tunnels or MRTs which will take many years to complete so do go for BRT which is cheaper, faster and easier to implement,” he said.
Yoga said Penang will need to implement changes to its city planning to be more pedestrian-friendly while introducing the BRT.
He said a lot of other cities are now changing their planning to be focused on pedestrians and cyclists.
“It is my hope that in 30 years, cities will not have highways and flyovers while cyclists and pedestrians will rule the street,” he said.
