Halt MRT 3 project until 'extravagant cost' discussed in Parliament, urges MP
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In March, he said Transport Minister Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong had said that the MRT 3 project will cost RM50 billion.
"However, the poor ridership performance of MRT 1 has cast doubt if MRT 2 and 3 can achieve its ridership targets," he said in a statement today.
MRT 1 started operations in 2017 and had projected a daily ridership of 442,000 in the opening year. However, Chang said MRT 1 ridership failed to reach its target.
Based on data released by the Land Public Transport Agency, Chang said the average daily ridership of MRT 1 from 2017 were 65,117 passengers in 2017, 162,633 (2018), 204,821 (2019), 105,883 (2020) and 62,938 passengers till June 2021.
"While pandemic might be one of the causes for low daily ridership in 2020 and 2021, one must also note that even with unlimited travel passes in place since 2019, our highest average daily ridership was only 204,821, which is only 46% of the forecasted ridership," he said.
The low ridership exposes a series of weaknesses in the public transport network, the PKR MP pointed out.
"Inadequate first and last mile connectivity, lack of accessibility and insufficient reliability of the rail and feeding services are the 3 major factors why commuters are reluctant to shift to public transport despite billions spent by the government in building infrastructures and operating these services," he said.
This is further justified by the failure of our public transport to achieve its targeted mode share of 40% by 2020.
MRT 1 was planned to be one of the catalysts to improve public transport modal share of 20% (measured in 2015) to 40% by 2020. However, Chang added as reported in the 12th Malaysian Plan, public transport modal share stood at a mere 21% in 2018, after the MRT 1 has commenced.
"In other words, with close to RM115 billion of government guarantee loan raised by DanaInfra and Prasarana to build and operate these infrastructures, there is hardly any significant impact or improvement on the usage of public transport," he added.
Chang is of the opinion that ridership is the key indicator to justify spending.
"No doubt that public transport is the way for more sustainable and efficient commutes, however, these costly projects ought to be justified by sustainable ridership.
"Billions spent by the government to sustain the system will be in vain if it could not attract people to shift mode. Eventually, the rakyat has to foot the bill for the hefty annual operational losses," he added.
MRT3 Circle Line will have a circular alignment running along the perimeter of Kuala Lumpur City at about 51km in length, split between 40km of elevated tracks and 11km of underground tunnels, he added.
The current proposed alignment of MRT3 Circle Line will have 31 stations with 10 of them serving as interchange stations with the eight existing rail lines in the Klang Valley.
