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Jeff,

Most of the Penangnites wont take the so called 'Public Transport'.Everyone has a Car ,if they cant afford it they will get a bike.

I think the public transport in Penang is comparable to the 3rd world country.The last time I sat on the public bus in PG when I was still studying in Secondary School.

5years later,it's still the same.
They cant even maintain the bus up to a proper standard.How can they maintain the future MONORAIL?

Many many blessing from your anchesters. So much for the lifestyle change.

Penangties deserved that kind of services/quality of governance. Afterall, this is something that vote for. Too bad, too late.

BTW, as a doomsayer, I can predict Penang states will go into deep sh*t trouble in future with more megaproject. The island will go bankrupt if those "3 bonus project" land on the island.

Jeff my friend, u must be on the same bus we took 4 years ago from Bukit Jambu to Komtar! It is downright DANGEROUS! Even a third world country will thrash that bus! Did Dr Teng ever take one of those bus? Penang is now more like a slump of the Orient.

You know what would be great, have a reality TV show that features key ministers and MPs on an adventure by public transport around Malaysia.

Have them suffer through the travel without the help of their bodyguards and political secretaries. And then can include SMS and phone-in voting and contest and all, with the revenue completely going into the Govt's coffers for better and more transparent transportation management.

Make the celcos kowtow to the contests, so that they do not charge the network fee for every SMS received.

Fuiyoh, this is gonna be big!

Oh btw, why not ask OKT to take Milan bus.

Typo: the first appearance of the bus number plate in the article is PDU 5916 while the rest is PDU 9516.

Dear Jeff,

I had my early days in Penang. My prime mode of transport back then was the highly respected City Council and Hin Co. buses that took me along Penang Road and Tanjung Bungah till I was elevated to using a Boon Siew kap chai.

I know not what the new transport scheme is like in Penang but whenever you catch a bus next time, watch the number plate. In this instance you had the unlucky opportunity to board a bus that was destined to take you on a roacky road. To me PDU stands for "pedukang", a shit eating fish and 9516 or 5916, whichever way the sequence goes, totals a number ending in the digit 1 i.e "cheh meh". In short, taking a pedukang for a ride is bad enough but you had to ride on a blind one, which explains your journey.

I was at Penang last weekend too, instead of driving to the island, I decided to experience the public transport.

At Penang port, I took up a RM1 bus, but end up waiting 15 minutes due to the operators' confusion towards the schedule on who should drive out first (first-in-first-out basic).

Then, passengers were asked to swift to another bus in order to fill the earlier bus which was still vacant and being shouted with rude words when the bus was full and those who are standing must force themselves to the way (I will definitely remember the fat ass guy).

Bus condition is in sad case, can you imagine some seats without the back? I managed to find time, talking to an old woman as she complained about the fare increment (Jetty - Paya Terubong, from RM1.20 to RM2.00).

By the name, the bus operator is Link Transit.

Teng Hock Nan was saying confusion, but the issue here is, more than confusion.

finally someone has said something about the public transport of Penang. and mind you, that is only confined to the public transport arena. we haven't even touched on the subject of the traffic system in Penang.
i won't go there. it takes another decade to make some noise in Penang

Luckily you did not drive back to USJ on Sunday. There was a minor accident before Rawang, but the 'jam' ( slow driving/ less than 50kph and stop and go ) for more than 30km.
There were few tow trucks cruising the highway at the speed less than 40km per hour and they are the hazards in fact.
I do not believe PLUS are good in crisis management when there is an accident. tehre are not quick to open another lane to clear the tarffic before it builds up!
Buy using the public transport, at least you can relax and have a good laksa, otak otak and fried keow teow at Loring Shariff before you took the flight home.

What we're reading here is neglect topped by negligence.

Attaining developed status is not about a well-bound country report. Neither is it signified by a bunch of statistics. Nor the pockets of bangsar-type fresnos in the klang valleys of the world.

It's what the people in the rest of the country really go through every day.

And what we're seeing in Penang is representative of some 80-90% of the rest of the country that's not within the klang valley where neglect and negligence have taken root for too long.

If the authorities, and you can throw in federal, state, city, district and party, do not have the means to progress each place for so many years, and that's not just about public transportation but other amenities like schools at high density places, internet, public phones, proper drainage etc, then one wonders where has all the money gone that could have made a significant difference to the well-being of the rakyat. Some say 'lifestyle' of the rakyat.

It's not just Penang. Add Taiping, Ipoh, Johor Baru and all the other towns throughout the country that seem to regressed as fast their zincroofs have coated with the rust of yesteryear.

To achieve developed status by route of a first-world mentality, perhaps the govt should reexamine all its assumptions again, including the way it has been thinking about how to make decisions.

By ourselves, we simply don't have the domestic frappe de'force anymore to generate growth internally. Part of the impetus for progressive change has to come from external sources.

It remains to ask what is it we're not doing right that is not attracting enough of them to come and help stimulate economic growth and paradigm changes.

And one doesn't need junket trips to know that in Shenzhen there's a road where they've planted mango trees in a straight line along a wide pavement in a city serviced by modern buses supplied by a certain small state. On which matter, the navigation height of the 2nd link is only 9-25 metres so what manner of ship can go underneath? Seems we'll be paying a lot for motorboats to traverse, for money better utilized elsewhere?

Personally, the very first step taken by our Government to build a good LRT network is already down the drain.

I am sure many commuters are complaining that there is no proper connection between Putra, Star and Monorail. It's very disappointing to see that we have to walk out of a station get into another station.

How are we gonna fix this connection problem?! How the 4.4 billion will help improve our public transport, I dont know...
I doubt it... Will they close down Sentral Monorail and make a diversion connecting it to KL Sentral directly? hahaha... We have to walk under the hot sun/rain for at least 80 meters to catch a monorail...

Close down Putra Dang Wangi and build another station linking Bukit Nanas monorail? Let's try that for start.

Assuming the Government wants Malaysian contractor to benefit the LRT project by awarding the contracts to 3 operators/contractors. How on earth did our Ministry of Transport approved such lousy LRT network? Any Tom, Dick and Harry can see the obvious flaw in the network design...

So Penang will have monorail now. That is a brilliant idea! But when come implementation and design stages, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not repeat the Klang Valley LRT blooper. I dont want to see our taxpayers money go to waste.

If u guys have a chance to visit NZ, try out the buses here and tell me what u think ;-)

Jeff, I sympathize with your predicaments in the Pearl of the Orient! :P
It is sad to see the island slow sinking into disrepair or despair. Too many red tapes, little inwards investments, bad planning or no planning at all, services stretching to the breaking point, Crimes, corruption, governmental dereliction....need I say anymore. Perhaps it has something to do with the underperforming Chinese CM?
Penangites have given in to the fate. (May be they should not !!!) When gomen talks about a project, give it about 10 years and may be you would see some signs of activity. They talked about the coastal highway before I was in the Uni !! The highway is still not completed. It was built in segments and like all other highways in Malaysia, you have to pay a toll.
I hope that you have time to savor the food in Penang. Look at the bright side pal, at least you did not get mugged. May be you are mistaken as one of the local elderliies ;) :)

cyleow,

I actually tried one back in Feb, in downtown Auckland, took a bus with a friend to his place about 15 mins away. Not bad at all, and I heard from him that some bus stops have electronic signage that tells how soon the next bus is arriving, with some GPS navigation or so...

Oh well, any country like Australia, New Zealand even Singapore's public transportation are better than ours.

It is well managed and many consideration are really taken onto hand to network the whole system. Integration they call it.

Jeff, Milan bus like our Metrobus here in KL are just the same. They have to suffer because of major dominance of govt buses. Why don't the govt. just offer Milan to run some routes together?

Utilising resources to the max is the key, and I don't see that in govt. handling..

Hi Jeff, if you haven't decided to take the public transport, you wouldn't have experienced the woes that the Joe public goes through daily. If only our country's leaders will take the public transport themselves, then only they will realize how inefficient it is and how much the country's productivity has been lost due to it. The recent 4bil commitment to public transport will only buy new busses, but won't help the fact that people running the systems still the same... If we have not improved our public transport so many years since independence, we will never be able to improved it at all... come 2020, this "developed" nation will still have bus drivers negotiating and leaving passengers stranded at terminals...

Perhaps some of you should think of starting a bus services in Penang?

As I came to understand recently Malaysians retired at age 55 therefore there must be plenty of able bodies to do so? :) :) :) . Men as driver, feamle as conductor !!

Cindy

With all that money from our rescources, one would think we should be capable of doing all the things possible to implement the systems that citizens of other countries like Singapore, New Zealand or Australia take for granted. Instead, our elected elites are still fighting the ghosts of our historical baggage, playing with the cultural, religious & racial prejudices and using these very prickly issues as weapons to threaten minorities who dare speak up for their rights. Meanwhile the rest of the citizens are wondering out loud where all the wealth went to, and at the same time paying more and more and getting lesser and lesser for our money's worth. Also, instead of working towards finding better solutions to these highly obvious public woes, the majority of our elected elites are trying to outdo each other in the power equation, even making use of these very same woes in trying to undermine and unseat those sitting in the executive chairs (Penang's case). With that kind of focus and preoccupation, the 9MP budget seems like tossing salt into the ocean, and 2020 seems more like a pipe dream and inching further away into the horizon. Or is it something we will eventually publish in a brightly colored brochure or install as a screen-saver?

cyleow,

I've lived in Auckland, New Zealand for a year during my student days and I am amazed by the bus service there.

My verdict is that our buses are like apples and oranges if compared to theirs. Not just in terms of cleanliness but also the condition of the buses. Auckland buses are not exactly new (when I was there many years back). Our buses here are newer. But it seems like our buses have gone thru a trans-borneo rally or have survived the ravages in Somalia.

In terms of punctuality, they win handsdown. They have bus schedules beside every bus stops and at first I was thinking it is impossible to keep to such schedule after so many years of being exposed to the Malaysian public transportation system. How wrong I was when I discovered that the buses are never late or early for more than 5 mins!

There is this once when I was done shopping at 277 Newmarket and wanted to take a Link Bus ride home (the Link bus is very very similar with our Rapid KL Shuttle Bus). I was amazed that before I boarded the bus, the driver actually took the pain to tell passengers that it was her last trip for the day and she would stop at Queen Street. No abandonment or refund needed.

Lastly it is the courtesy that amazes me. Everytime that the bus stops, 80% of the riders would say thank you to the driver before they disembark. Try any form of courtesy in Malaysia and you'll be greeted with a weird or very surprised look. Just say thank you or terima kasih when you pay your parking or when purchasing a ticket. It is fun and I always do that hehehe......anyway I have a habit of saying thank you since I returned from NZ and you'll be surprised how people appreciate a little gratitude.

Before anyone had the thinking that I am one of those people whom only praised the 'west'....well......take a look at our neighbours. Their MRT is 19 years old now and certainly their earliest trains are still in use. Compared to the conditions of our Putraline coaches, ours looks beaten. And dun get me started on the buses. Some might say Singapore is rich and have lesser land mass so it is easier to maintain....well.....their MRT lines are waaayyyy much longer than ours.

Also take a look at Bangkok's BTS. They started service in 1999 (a year after Putraline). Somehow their's also looks cleaner and newer than our Putraline coaches. Ours is very high-tech....driverless etc. but coach conditions are not too up to standards. They are not really bad but they are certainly not that well-maintained. Not only that, they are running at over-capacity now and I wonder how long can the system handle.

Oh and back to my NZ bus experience...hmmm......that was 5 years ago. We have not even reached their state-of-mentality in year 2000. It is 2006 now and we have less than 14 years to go before 2020. The clock is ticking....tick....tock.....tick....tock

oh well, what you had experienced, jeff, was the norm to many penang commuters who depends on the public transport.

i depend on the public transport during weekends. on 31 march (fri.) evening, though it was not 1 april yet, the new bus system had started already. i had a bad experience with it that day. see my blog:
casualty of the new bus system

however the bus i took that day, also a milan bus was a bus in good condition, with proper seats and air con working well. and it was a comfortable ride.

it doesn't mean all the buses in penang are in ramshackle state, see, though i agree most are. dr teng himself had admitted this fact when all buses sent to puspakom for test, only a handful (less than 10) pass the test.

to quote neil:
"it's not just Penang. Add Taiping, Ipoh, Johor Baru and all the other towns throughout the country that seem to regressed as fast their zincroofs have coated with the rust of yesteryear."

... i agree whole-heartedly. don't just point the finger at penang. other cities are just as bad.