Planning for new housing projects should include public transport as a basic utility alongside electricity, water and sewerage, or else residents could remain locked into car dependence when they move in. According to Malaysian Public Transport Users Association (4PAM) president Ajit Johl, this aspect is never covered whenever local councils coordinate proposed developments.
He said utility providers were represented at one-stop centres in these instances, but the bus operator expected to serve the new community was usually absent. He added that bus services usually arrive only after residents have moved in, by which point many households would have already bought cars because there was no practical alternative, The Sun reports.
“Public transport must be included when a new development is first proposed. The largest operator expected to serve that area must be present, so it can tell the developer where the bus stops should be placed and ensure the pathways leading to them are properly lit,” he said.
Ajit said that without such input, developers often end up placing bus stops wherever they considered suitable, even when the locations were inconvenient or unsafe for passengers. He said that developers should not bear the blame alone for this, as transport authorities and operators had not advised them during the approval stage. “If the operator was involved from the beginning and knew that 1,000 homes were coming, it could start planning the routes early,” he indicated.
He said the planning process should also include continuous pedestrian pathways, safe road crossings, adequate lighting and CCTV coverage to ensure residents could reach bus stops and stations safely. He also said while such planning gaps could contribute to car dependence, the latest increase in vehicle sales should not be treated as direct proof that inadequate public transport was driving purchases.
“There could be a correlation between increasing car sales and inadequate public transport, but there also may not be one. Examining car sales on a month-to-month basis without considering other data may not provide a fair basis for comparison,” he explained.
Ajit said that while the government had considerably improved bus services and urban rail, weaknesses remained in first and-last-mile connectivity. As such, public transport infrastructure should be treated as an essential service at the development planning stage, rather than added only after a neighbourhood had taken shape. “If a developer must pay connection charges for electricity, water and sewerage, why should it not also be required to provide proper public transport infrastructure?” he explained.
