BY the time you read this, the lives of thousands of people in large parts of the Klang Valley would have changed forever. For the better, we hope.
Stretching 60km from Sungai Buloh to Kajang, the second phase of the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line has begunits operations. Nowhere will its impact be felt more than in the Kajang/Cheras neighbourhood.
The infamous Cheras crawl has been around for decades. The roads of old no longer exist. In its place is a spanking new network of multi-lane highways criss-crossing the neighbourhood. These highways are always attractively acronymed with fancy sounding names. However, in real life, they are not as fancy as they sound.
Being caught in traffic that may stretch for hours is a common daily sight. If you live in Cheras, you accepted this as part of your life. You just grit your teeth and bear it, because there is nothing else to do.
But I suspect this is pretty much the same in all other suburbs of the Klang Valley. I don’t think the situation is any better if you lived in Kepong, Segambut, Selayang or Gombak. Traffic congestion is a way of life in Kuala Lumpur, and we, the citizens of this city, have come to accept it as the norm.
Of course, if you lived in the upmarket suburbs of Bangsar, Hartamas or Petaling Jaya, I suppose you would be spared the worst of it.
Driving 1½ hour to get to the office in the morning and another 1½ hour to get back home in the evening is a daily occurrence for thousands of people in the Klang Valley. Everyone is hopeful that the MRT will change all that. Everywhere I go, the topic of conversation seems to somehow come back to the MRT and its perceived effect on lifestyles and property values.
In order for the MRT to work, the first thing that needs changing is the mindset of people. If your mindset won’t allow you to leave the comfort of your car and go through the process of parking, queuing to get a ticket, taking a train, changing lines at designated stations, boarding another train, getting off and walking the last half mile or so to your office, this concept is never going to work.
But in order for these mindsets to change, it must be relatively-pain free for commuters to go through this process. If I had no way of getting to the nearest station from my home, or if I had no reasonable way of getting to my office from my last station, the MRT, no matter how efficient it is, would make absolutely no sense to me.
The concept of the MRT isn’t to get every single car off the road. If it was successful in reducing the number of cars on the street by even 30 per cent, it would be a massively successful first run.
I am hopeful that thousands of people who live in Cheras and Kajang will now leave their cars at home and take the train to work. And if enough people do that, perhaps I don’t have to spend an 1½ hour every single day to get to my office.
Come on Klang Valley, let’s ride the train together. May the force be with you.