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  • Land Public Transport Commision – making public transport a desirable option for you and me

    In Local News, Rants, Thoughts / By / / 121 comments

    Did you watch Episode 7 of Driven, where our Harvinder used public transport to race from one point of town to another with Sharizan and Alis? Actually, race isn’t the right word, as the man and his umbrella was nowhere as quick as the the bike and car of his co-hosts in completing the route. He lost of course, and didn’t save that much money compared to Sharizan’s Kawasaki. Click here to view the “race”.

    I myself am no stranger to the KTM Komuter, which surely is the worse rail line in the Klang Valley. You look at the timing board and it reads “Rawang 1730″ but when the countdown to 5:30 stops, the train doesn’t appear and the board recalculates, adding another 20 minutes to the waiting time. And when it finally arrives, getting into the coach is like going to war. If you prevail, pray hard that the four persons glued to you don’t have body odour. Had a bad day at work? Rest assured that the journey home will do its best to add to your misery.

    I’m sure that many of you have similarly bad experiences or even endure it everyday. Some have it better than others, depending on the location of your workplace and home, and which rail line/bus you depend on, but I’m sure everyone will agree that Klang Valley’s public transport system is nowhere near world-class and desperately needs an overhaul. The Government knows this for a fact too, which is the reason Suruhanjaya Pengangkutan Awam Darat (SPAD) or the Land Public Transport Commission came into existence.

    Headed by former Home Minister Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar as Chairman and special adviser to the Transport Ministry Mohd Nur Ismail Mohamed Kamal as CEO, SPAD will draw up policies, plan, regulate and enforce regulations concerning public transport. To do this, the commission will absorb existing bodies such as the Railway Department and the Commercial Vehicle Licensing Board.

    Currently, there are 15 government agencies and departments with a say in how public transport is run. SPAD will solve this overlapping objectives and powers and introduce integrated policies and regulations. “We want to get away from the ad hoc-ish style of solving problems and want to have a holistic view of the matter,” Mohd Nur Ismail said. SPAD, which will “champion the public transport cause” and try to get us out of our cars and bikes, will assume powers in September 2010, when the Road Transport Amendment Act is gazetted.


    Click to enlarge

    SPAD, which reports directly to the Prime Minister, will carry out initiatives for the National Key Result Area (NKRA) focusing on the Klang Valley. Their goals appear highly ambitious: SPAD aims to raise Klang Valley’s public transport usage from the current 12% to 25% in 2012 ad 30% by 2015 (for comparison, cities such as Singapore, Hong Kong, London and Paris have a figure of up to 70%). How are they going to achieve this will be of interest to stakeholders such as you and me.

    Continue reading after the jump.
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  • Happy CNY to all: Firecracker Worries

    In Cars, Rants, Thoughts / By / / 18 comments

    Happy Chinese New Year of the Boar to everyone. Hope you had a good time. Me? For personal reasons, there’s not much celebrations going on except for the exchanging of ang pows, plus my internet chose to be down the entire festive season. The last time my internet died was during Hari Raya. I see a pattern here.

    Every Chinese New Year, I am unable to rest without fidgeting around and worrying about my cars. You see, I happen to live in a neighbourhood where most of my neighbours are young parents with little kids. They play lots of firecrackers. While I am not against this, there has been an occasion in the past where fire crackers hit my Nissan Sunny. No compensation was given, and when advised to go play their fire crackers in a playground just down the road, the advice was ignored. Now I am constantly reparking my Proton Perdana and a press car BMW 130i M Sport, especially the latter, further down the road and inside my house whenever I hear firecrackers.

    Has any of you had this problem? Has fireworks and firecrackers damaged your car? Do you have the same fears that I do, or am I just weird? I think my paranoia is justified, as it HAS happened before. What do you do with these kind of neighbours?

     

  • Karamjit will not be able to defend APRC title

    In Local News, Rants / By / / 38 comments

    I previously blogged about Karamjit Singh’s plight here. Here is a quote from that blog.

    Karamjit will not be participating in the current round, Round 3, which is in Rotorua, New Zealand on the 17th and 19th. Round 4 would be in Hokkaido Japan. But guess where is Round 5s venue? No where else but MALAYSIA! (19-21 August 2005) It would be a shame to see that our own Flying Sikh (Karamjits nickname) cannot even compete in his home grounds because he could not secure sponsorship!

    That was back in June. Two months has passed and he still has not been able to get sponsorship for the Malaysian leg of the championship.
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  • Why Can’t Karamjit Singh Secure Sponsorship?

    In Cars, Rants / By / / 47 comments

    That is the question that I am asking. That’s the question Karamjit himself is asking. And I bet almost every single automotive enthusiast who I know will be asking.

    Together with his co-driver Allen Oh, Karamjit had won the FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) last year, as well as in 2001 and 2002. Because of him, Proton had also snagged the Manufacturer’s title in 2002 and 2004. Karamjit also took the Group N (Production car) titles in 1997, 2000 and 2001. (Source)

    Isn’t this a proven track record for success? How come he is unable to get sponsorship from anyone?

    Do you need more proof?
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