Suaram activists released on police bail, complain of “mala fide”
PGCC the biggest land scam: Guan Eng slams Koh and Teng
Statement by Dato’ Dr Teng Hock Nan Former Penang State Exco Member in charge of Local Government
THE PROPOSED PGCC PROJECT: PREVIOUS STATE GOVERNMENT DID NOT APPROVE AS YET PRESENT GOVERNMENT CAN DECIDE AND IMPOSE LEVIES
It must be emphasised that the application for planning permission by the developer of the proposed Penang Global City Centre (PGCC) project has not yet been approved by the Penang Island Municipal Council (MPPP) under the previous state government as of 8 March 2008.
The previous state government has also not made any decision as yet on whether and how much premiums or charges were to be levied on the developer relating to the proposed PGCC project.
The formulation of the structure plan, which made provisions on zoning of development for the whole state, followed the proper provisions and procedure for structure plan under the Town and Country Planning Act. Public exhibitions and hearings were held in 2006 – 2007 on the draft structure plan which was finalised and gazetted in June 2007.
In this respect, the structure plan did not specify the type (residential or commercial or “mixed”) and the scale (density, plot ratio, etc) of “new development” zoned on that site.
The MPPP can still decide whether to reject or approve any development proposal, including the type and the scale. It is also up to the State Planning Committee chaired by the Chief Minister to provide guidance.
Therefore, since no decision has been made as yet, it is up to the new state government and the MPPP to make whatever decision that they think suitable with respect to the site and any development proposal, including whatever charges to be imposed.
Sat, 10/5/2008
Two Suaram activists still held, five others released
MP Liew Chin Tong (Tg Bungah, Bukit Bendera, DAP) was reported there in the afternoon. You reported PKR DUN Ravi was also there.
I was a busy body there from 5pm to 7pm. The police handling was very slow. Went in afternoon, and still taking statements around 7pm. Efficiency? Cepat, cekap, whatever that motto that keeps changing?
Police seemed to be consciously aiming at photo and video takers. Ong was reported to be taking photo when arrested. Satish also said to be following the police with a camera around Gurney Plaza when arrested. Others taking phone video at the police HQ were hassled.
Is the police afraid of multi-racial sympathy toward the ISA detainees?
5.30pm – Three more Hindraf activists or supporters are also said to be held by police: Vimal, Hindraf activist Selvam and press freedom activist Stanley, who had earlier campaigned for a boycott of The Star. This brings the total to seven detained. 3.15pm – About 10-15 people are at the police station. B K Ong, Satish, Suaram Penang coordinator Lau Shu Shi and Suaram secretariat member Teh Chun Ong are being detained. Lawyer Darshan Singh is said to be around. Teh was taken away in handcuffs after he had used his camera at the station while Shu Shi is now being held in the hall of the police station, guarded by policewomen. When Shu Shi tried to resist upon seeing the police handcuffing her colleague Teh, the policewoman told her not to struggle as she (the policewoman) was pregnant. Shu Shi is not sure if she is under arrest but her IC has been taken away and she is being confined to the hall. B K Ong is believed to be somewhere upstairs in the station. 2.00pm – Penang-based Ong Boon Keong, better known as B K Ong, and blogger Satish were detained around noon today after participating in an hour-long demonstration said to be organised by Hindraf to raise awareness of ISA detainee Uthayakumar’s medical condition. They were rallying in support of his attempts to seek further medical attention at the National Heart Institute (IJN) in KL. The two were among 30-50 demonstrators who gathered along Gurney Drive outside Gurney Plaza for about an hour, while some of them were said to have attempted to enter the mall. Police and FRU personnel were at the scene. It is not immediately known what circumstances led to the two being held. A similar demonstration was held at the Prai Megamall on the mainland. Ong, who runs the Penang Watch website, and Satish are now being held at the Patani Road police station. Supporters are waiting in the hall downstairs while Penang State Assembly member Ravi from PKR is now at the scene. I had only met B K Ong at a forum in Penang last night when we were both on the same panel at a Suaram forum discussing the role of Public Service Media and how it can be strengthened. We also critiqued the Pakatan Rakyat’s plans to set up its own newspaper for five states and discussed whether this was a good move. Ong felt that steps should be taken to make it more independent than what was being planned. For my part, I felt that any attempt to set up a state government-backed newspaper would run into problems as it would suffer from credibility issues as a result of public perception of it being backed by the state – especially if editors and key staff are appointed by the party. Such journalism would serve the interests of political masters rather than the public. Good journalism should challenge and critique oppressive power structures. And it would be difficult to do that if a newspaper is funded or owned by the state or if its editors and key staff were appointed by political parties. Surely, that would compromise its editorial independence and journalistic integrity.Who’s profiting from higher food prices? Certainly not the rice farmers
Top 5 Shareholders (as of 19 April 2007)
|
||||||||
|
1. |
Budaya Generasi (M) Sdn Bhd |
144,829,500 |
30.79 |
|||||
|
2. |
HSBC Nominees (Asing) Sdn Bhd |
87,381,800 |
18.58 |
|||||
|
3. |
Serba Etika Sdn Bhd |
30,143,500 |
6.41 |
|||||
|
4. |
Lembaga Tabung Haji Sdn Bhd |
22,590,000 |
4.80 |
|||||
|
5. |
AIBB Nominees (Tempatan) Sdn Bhd
|
20,422,000 |
4.34 |
|||||
Source: Bernas website
Budaya Generasi is controlled by Syed Mokhtar Al Bukhary. And of course the share price of Bernas has been surging over the last year even as the rice farmers suffer. There is now talk that Bernas will be taken private. With rice prices surging, it’s a good time to ensure a monopoly of profits as well, eh? See this Business Times report:Bernas surges on talk it will be taken private
SHARES of the country’s only licensed rice supplier, Padiberas Nasional Bhd (Bernas), closed at their highest in more than two months yesterday on renewed speculation that it will be taken private.
The stock rose 2.4 per cent to close at RM2.13.
Budaya Generasi (M) Sdn Bhd, controlled by Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al Bukhary, holds 31 per cent of the company.
Other major shareholders like Wang Tak Co Ltd and Lembaga Tabung Haji have been raising their stake in Bernas over the last year or so.
Fund managers said the rumour of a buyout is not new.
“The share price has been rather firm these few weeks, bolstered by the continued purchase of the company’s stock by existing shareholders,” Philip Capital Management’s Ang Kok Heng said.
Malaysia, which imports between 700,000 to 800,000 tonnes annually to complement its 1.1 million local production, buys about 50 to 60 percent from Thailand and the rest from Vietnam, India and Pakistan.
Let’s do the calculation: Local production 1.1 million tonnes divided by total rice requirements (1.1 million tonnes + 750,000 tonnes) = 59 per cent self sufficiency. No wonder we are vulnerable to rising prices and speculation in food prices. Is there an alternative to the pesticide-intensive corporate model of agriculture? How about organic farming? Now, before you say, “Come on, be realistic, it will never be enough to feed the whole country!”, check out the video clip below featuring the amazing organic farming revolution in Cuba, which had the BBC presenter enthused with obvious admiration. In Malaysia and elsewhere, young people are turning away from farming in rural areas and migrating to towns. But in Cuba, many young people and professionals are actually turning to farming – even in their towns and back gardens – and taking obvious pride in it. They see themselves as making a useful contribution to local communities. They use natural pesticides – and the vegetable farms are close to the markets; so they cut down on transport costs too. Let’s give a major role to organic agriculture – which has a tremendous global market potential in the face of the GM food menace and the onslaught of pesticide-laced food products. Remember, we can’t eat semiconductor chips. So there’s nothing to stop us from emulating the Cuban farming revolution. Have a look at this piece I wrote for IPS to discover the likely culprits behind rising food prices. MALAYSIA: Food Futures Behind Rising Prices Analysis by Anil Netto PENANG, May 6 (IPS) – With stock markets and the property sector in the United States weakening, speculative investors are turning to fuels and the food sector as a “safe haven”, driving up prices in the process, say some food security activists. This is the logical sequence from the transformation of food from a basic human need to an economic ”commodity”, they point out. This has made it a lot easier for investors and trading houses to regard agricultural food as a legitimate target for speculation, hoarding and market manipulation, especially though the futures market. Full article.Candlelight vigil for Raja Petra at Dataran last night
Two hot potatoes in PGCC/Penang Turf Club deal
Utter fiasco! Here’s why CCTV cameras won’t work in Penang
Billions spent on CCTV have failed to cut crime and led to an ‘utter fiasco’, says Scotland Yard surveillance chief
Last updated at 11:22am on 07.05.08
The billions of pounds spent covering Britain with CCTV cameras has been an “utter fiasco” and failed to slash crime, Scotland Yard’s surveillance chief has said.
Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville said a Metropolitan Police pilot project found just three per cent of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images.
He claimed the vast swathes of money spent on cameras had been wasted because criminals don’t fear the cameras.
But Mr Neville also castigated the police and claimed officers can’t be bothered to seek out CCTV images because it’s “hard work”.
The comments from Mr Neville, who is the head of the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Viido) at Scotland Yard, will further cast doubt on the spread of surveillance in Britain.
Britain has one per cent of the world’s population but, incredibly, 20 per cent of its CCTV cameras – the equivalent of one for every 14 people.
Last year it emerged the £200m spent on 10,000 crime-fighting cameras in London had had little effect on reducing offending.
A comparison of the number of cameras in each London borough with the proportion of crimes solved there found that police were no more likely to catch offenders in areas with hundreds of cameras than in those with hardly any.
Speaking at a security conference in London, Mr Neville claimed the use of CCTV images for court evidence had been very poor so far.
He said: “CCTV was originally seen as a preventative measure.
“Billions of pounds have been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court.
“It’s been an utter fiasco: only three per cent of crimes were solved by CCTV.
“Why don’t people fear it? They think the cameras are not working.”…
So please don’t waste public money on CCTV cameras. Rather, get to the root causes of the rising crime rate and tackle them. Meanwhile, hot off the oven:Question #47 – Mei 2008
Liew Chin Tong (Bukit Bendera) asks the Minister of Housing and Local Government to state the direction and time frame to establish local council elections to start a new chapter of democracy in Malaysia.
Minister’s Response: The Government does not plan to conduct any local council elections.
Well, we can’t wait for the BN-led Federal Government, which is so out of touch with the people’s aspirations. The Pakatan state governments must come up with a quick road map to push through local government elections.Malaysia’s folk hero Raja Petra opts for jail to prove a point
Farewell, blogger Rustam; welcome, blogger Mustafa
And so the baton is passed in the relay of life.
From one true Malaysian and leading public intellectual, Rustam, and his blog…
…. to another, as Mustafa K Anuar, the asst secretary of Aliran, kicks off his blog with his first full entry on World Press Freedom Day.
When Mus told me he was starting a blog, I remarked that he would be taking up the blogging baton that Rustam has handed over. Mus is also coordinator of Charter 2000-Aliran, a citizens’ media initiative to promote press freedom, and fellow of the Asian Public Intellectuals (API) programme.
Some of the best journalists in Malaysia today were taught by Mus and his colleagues – and they will undoubtedly be delighted to see his blog.
Rustam and Mustafa – both wonderful people with a broad, universal outlook; both involved in the media; both passionate about the cause of justice; both Aliran members – and both genuine Malaysians.
One blog goes dormant and another springs to life.
Mus says he is starting his blog because he has
“this nagging desire to know how it feels to be a monkey, a prostitute and an unemployed, among other unsavoury things!
For the uninitiated, these ‘labels’ were hurled against Malaysian bloggers by the powers-that-be especially before the 12th general election”.
Visit Mustafa’s brand new blog.
Odds and ends on World Press Freedom Day
Meanwhile, Raja Petra, when asked if his posting contained seditious elements, replied: “The whole website (is seditious). The whole Malaysia Today (is seditious)”.
So there! What a guy… On another note, someone sent me this link with the message:Lim Guan Eng spotted by Ning Baizura’s manager/agent at the airport and on a plane. Click here.
Have we have finally found a Chief Minister truly for the People?
You’ve got to give credit where credit is due. To the other CMs in Malaysia, watch and learn. Finally, blog reader Maliku has highlighted the latest threat to Penang’s hills:There is a piece of land on a slope just behind the leader garden condominiums in Tanjung Bungah, Penang where we saw surveying points and cleared brushes/trees during one of our runs in the hills. It is located just beside a catchment area and about 200 to 300 feet high on a little valley in the hills. Could it be earmarked for residential development? Can Ms Anil (err, I’m male!) check this out and bring it to the authorities’ attention because we need to preserve the remaining hills before Penang Island become a barren land!
Can anyone verify this? Those living around that area for instance?Bridge near Shanghai works out cheaper per km than second Penang bridge
Penang Turf Club: Here come the vultures
Banana-leaf lunch with cartoonist extraordinaire Zunar and blogger Fazlina
One of the most rewarding aspects of my line of work is that I get to meet some outstanding Malaysians. Really cool people.
Like Malaysia’s most famous political cartoonist, Zunar, and his wife Fazlina, who runs the Roti Kacang Merah blog.
A couple of colleagues – Ramakrishnan of Aliran and Kris, a human rights activist – and I caught up with them for lunch at a banana-leaf restaurant in Penang.
Zunar was in town on work. He is the editor of Suara Keadilan, which has just received its publishing permit, three years after their first application.
“Instead of saying thank you, Prime Minister, my thanks would go to our readers, vendors and printers, who have been intimidated in the past,” he told me. “We have been denied a permit for three years, so his announcement is three years too late … These reforms are half reforms, too late and too little.”
Contrary to earlier impressions, the sales of the fortnightly paper remain restricted to party members, though I guess the authorities will have a tough time enforcing this ridiculous and oppressive condition.
According to Zunar, Suara Keadilan’s circulation has jumped from 30,000 before the general election to close to 100,000 presently.
We had some good laughs. Zunar, who also contributes cartoons to Malaysiakini, has this hearty laugh that almost shook the walls of the restaurant. The man obviously has a great sense of humour and he has the gift of spotting the funny side of political life. Fazlina is bubbly and chatty and clearly appreciates his wit. Such a warm and down-to-earth couple. Check out her impression of our lunch together.
They were on a trip that took them from KL, past Perak to Penang and southern Kedah. “It was a good feeling to know that our entire journey was in Pakatan Rakyat territory,” they laughed.
I told them, yeah, you didn’t have to bring your (political) “passports” along! So it’s not just Celcom territory, eh…
How times have changed.
How different will the Pakatan’s economic policies be?
Thank God for the “mega setback” to Penang infrastructure projects
- Expand the ferry service and build more ferry terminals at different locations
- Introduce trams
- Build a cross-channel rail link perhaps alongside the Penang Bridge
Abdullah’s last stand
Malaysia’s leading public intellectual Rustam Sani passes on
This morning, at around 2.30am, Rustam Sani, social critic, political analyst, author of books on Malay and Malaysian nationalism, former lecturer and politician, newspaper columnist and fellow blogger, passed away. He had been unwell for some time.
Rustam Sani, an Aliran member, was famously described by Jomo as “arguably Malaysia’s leading public intellectual”. It was only last night that Aliran posted his last commentary piece on its website – about Mahathir.
He was the son of one of the great tokohs of the independence era, Ahmad Boestaman of the Angkatan Pemuda Insaf. Boestaman would go on to become the first MP to be detained in independent Malaya.
More than that, I will miss Rustam because he was a good friend of mine. I would occasionally phone him when I was writing articles and he never failed to shed new insights into the local political situation.
These were the last two occasions I spoke to him when writing articles in December and March, after the general election:
‘Neo-liberal policies fuelling protests, not race’
I am glad he lived to see the sweeping political changes in the country. When he failed to update his blog, I would call up to find out what happened and he would tell me he was busy working on his books. He had just completed two – “Failed nation: Concerns of a Malaysian nationalist” and “Social roots of the Malay left” – which all of us should get copies of, in recognition of this unsung hero. The book launch was actually scheduled for 26 April. (I hope it goes ahead as planned.) (Update: Just spoke to Rustam’s daughter Ariani: She confirms that the book launch will go ahead at the Selangor State Library in Shah Alam this Saturday at 3.00pm.) These should be collectors’ items for all concerned Malaysians. I met him for the first time in 2000 in KL, when he was already not too well. Sharing a conversation over drinks, he struck me as a humble, open, friendly person with a sharp wit – a true Malaysian in his thinking. I feel privileged to have known him. Later, he would tell me that blogging suited him as he was not as mobile as before. Malaysia has lost one of her finest sons. May his soul rest in peace. And my deepest condolences to his family. Farewell, brother Rustam. If you know him or are familiar with his work, share your thoughts about him or pay your tribute to him in the comments below.
Independent ACA: Oh, really?
ACA to be made full-fledged commission by year-end
2008/04/21
The Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) will be made a full-fledged commission to include a system of effective checks and balances and will be more independent in terms of its operations, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said today. The prime minister said this was one of the four key reform initiatives that would be carried out by the government by year-end in the move to address the public concerns on corruption in the country.
Abdullah said the key element of the commission would be the establishment of an independent corruption prevention advisory board whose members would be appointed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong on the advice of the prime minister.
“Board members will advise the commission on administrative and operational matters. The board will also be briefed on cases that involve public interest and consequently can enquire or recommend that certain measures be undertaken.
“Most importantly, the board will act to assure the public that these public interest cases are being dealt with appropriately and adequately,” he said in a keynote address at the Asean Integrity Dialogue 2008, here.
Abdullah said a parliamentary committee on the prevention of corruption would also be established, to which the commission would table its annual report. Members of the committee could seek further clarification and explanation on the report.
He said the three other reforms were adding 5,000 more officers at all levels from various fields of expertise in the next five years to enhance the anti-corruption force as well as offering attractive new terms of service; introducing a legislation to provide comprehensive protection for whistle blowers and witnesses; and improving the public procurement process through measures that target and address specific problem areas in the system.
“I have directed the chief secretary to the government to work together with the Pemudah team to formulate a framework to improve the public procurement process, making it more transparent and accountable,” he said.
(Pemudah is a public-private sector initiative which aims to simplify business operations in Malaysia by improving government services.) Elaborating on the commission to reporters later, Abdullah said that though the commission would be required to table its annual report to the parliamentary committee, he would be responsible for the commission.
“There’s always a minister, anywhere in the world, responsible for any institution set up. And I will be responsible for the institution. In all the cases that we have studied it is the same because the government is responsible to parliament. They are representatives of the people, so they have to explain everything (to the people),” he said.
Touching on the independence of the commission, the prime minister said it would be independent in terms of recruitment as well as having its own policies, among others.
“It will have the power to hire and fire (personnel). It will have its own policies in terms of what it has to do. So that’s how they are going to operate.
“The Securities Commission also operates in the same way but it still has the minister responsible – the Minister of Finance,” he said, adding that it also meant more power for the commission to make decisions on many matters on its own.
Abdullah said the commission would be established based on the models of various countries known to be among the best in the world, such as Hong Kong’s.
On the parliamentary committee members, he said he would discuss with members of parliament on whom they wanted to sit on the committee.
To a question whether today’s announcement and the other reforms announced by him over the last several days were in response to the people’s message through the ballot box in last month’s general election, Abdullah said it was part of his efforts to fulfill the promises made during the 2004 general election.
“My critics will say anything. If I had done it before they would say I want votes. If I don’t do it, they would say I have forgotten my promises. All of these were in my manifesto for the 2004 elections.
“The manifesto of the 2004 elections is not just for a four or five-year term. It is intended for the longer term. Vision 2020 is what we want to achieve. It is a matter for whoever the prime minister is at that time but we must take the motion to make the reform.
“Reforms cannot be made quickly without really thinking about what needs to be done. You just can’t reform for the sake of reform. If the reforms are not effective, then they don’t mean anything,” he said.
Abdullah said he could not deliver on his promises much earlier as there were other matters that demanded priority. “But I don’t forget my promises. I will do it (fulfill them) when the time comes,” he said.
On a question about the legal protection of whistle blowers and witnesses, Abdullah said the attorney-general had already begun to work on it.
“But I would like to remind that while it is necessary to have this protection, it doesn’t mean there is unfettered freedom to just write about anything and everybody. I want them to be responsible for their report. They must know exactly what they say and the basis of their report,” he said.
Earlier, in his speech, Abdullah said he and the government were still very much committed to their pledge to fight corruption in the country.
He said vigorous efforts taken by the government over the past four years had yielded some positive results but the public expected more due to the fact that today’s citizens were better educated and more sophisticated in their thinking.
Abdullah said that following initial feedback from the public, the government found that the public’s frustration with today’s situation stemmed from three main sources.
“Firstly, people feel that the institutional and legal framework for anti-corruption remains structurally weak and therefore prone to abuses. They point to the need for a clear separation of powers between the institution of government as well as a higher degree of transparency and public accountability from enforcement agencies,” he said.
Secondly, said Abdullah, people perceived that anti-corruption enforcement was slow and inconsistent as some had said that the so-called “big fish” were protected while the “small fry” faced the full brunt of the law.
“Thirdly, many people feel that the existing public procurement system and procedures for awarding government contracts are rife with opportunities for corruption,” he said….
Watch out! They are still talking about monorail and Porr
27-03-2008: MRCB: Subway system is several times costlier than monorail by Jose Barrock
KUALA LUMPUR: While the suggestion from Penang’s new Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng to build a subway system in Penang as opposed to a monorail is technically feasible, it will cost considerably more, said Malaysian Resources Corp Bhd (MRCB) managing director Shahril Ridza Ridzuan at Invest Malaysia 2008.
MRCB was picked to build the monorail system by the Federal government.
“Engineering-wise it is not so much an issue. At the end of the day, it is whether it meets the requirements of what they (the state and federal governments) are trying to achieve on a technical point, or whether from a cost point of view it is attractive.
“A tunnel solution for public transport will cost substantially more, you are talking about maybe a factor of four or five times more depending on soil conditions,” said Shahril.
Lim said recently that a subway rail system could be considered over an overhead structure, as a subway system could also double up as a flood mitigation tunnel.
If the state government led by Lim insists on a subway system and not a monorail, this could trigger a bout of fresh negotiations. The estimated cost for the proposed overhead monorail system, which spans 35km, is RM3.5 billion.
A consortium headed by MRCB (other members include Scomi Group Bhd and Penang Port Sdn Bhd) had been given a letter of intent to build the Penang monorail system late last year. The letter of award, however, is pending with negotiations on the salient features still ongoing.
“At this stage, we have been awarded a letter of intent and we are in the final stages of negotiations with the potential client, Syarikat Prasarana (Negara Bhd).
“Syarikat Prasarana and the state will have to work together closely to determine the configurations. We stand ready to be guided by our potential client as to how they want to take this further,” Shahril added.
MRCB had recently commenced base level negotiations with Syarikat Prasarana, a company under the Minister of Finance Inc, which is in charge of the country’s public transportation system. However, it is still awaiting the conclusion of negotiations with the state authorities.
In Penang, other than the proposed monorail or subway project, MRCB’s Shahril said the group would also bid for the RM1.1 billion Penang Outer Ring Road project, which was mooted by the Government during the last budget. If secured, these projects would give a strong boost to MRCB’s existing orderbook of RM3 billion.
For the financial year ended Dec 31, 2007, MRCB posted a net profit of RM40.7 million on the back of RM903.7 million in sales.
MRCB closed three sen lower at RM1.36 yesterday. The stock has shed about 50% of its value since the beginning of the year.
In contrast, Edinburgh (pop 500,000) is one of latest cities to opt for trams. And like Penang, Edinburgh is a heritage city, its streets not any wider than Penang’s. The city is looking at trams to complement its excellent bus service. Check out this report. Notice that “every £1 invested to introduce trams provides £1.63 of benefits for Edinburgh. This return makes it an extremely good project”.Why trams?
Edinburgh has an excellent bus system, and the highest bus patronage per capita of any UK city except London. However, even with the current excellent bus services, further public transport improvements are essential to keep pace with the increasing growth of the city. Trams add a new element to Edinburgh’s existing public transport network and trams are more appealing to car users. Trams will be reliable, fast and will carry about 260 passengers each, reducing the environmental impact of vehicle emissions and helping to alleviate congestion.
The tram has been planned to work with the city’s bus network. Both Edinburgh trams and Lothian Buses will be owned by the City of Edinburgh Council, creating ideal conditions to run the bus and tram network as a truly integrated system. Trams will also work with other bus and train companies to try to achieve integration across the city and the region.
What are the benefits of trams? Trams are an efficient, attractive and reliable way to get around. They will be easily accessible, particularly to those with mobility difficulties, and will provide level boarding at all stops. Other features will include highly visible stops, real time information, easy to purchase tickets and security measures which include passenger attendants on every tram.The introduction of trams will have a positive impact on the image and status of the city. Benefits include attracting investment, increasing the attractiveness of Edinburgh to business, improving access for customers and staff, encouraging tourists to visit the city and an increase in civic pride and civic status.
Trams enable more people to travel to the city centre and retail areas. For example, Dublin has seen a 35% increase in footfall at an end-of-line shopping mall. In Strasbourg, the number of shoppers in the city centre on a Saturday rose from 88,000 in 1992 to 163,000 in 1997 after the opening of two tram lines.
Trams will help reduce congestion and are aimed to be successful in attracting motorists. Recent research shows that 20% of peak hour and 50% of weekend UK tram passengers previously travelled by car. In Nottingham and Dublin, two other cities which have recently introduced trams, passenger numbers have exceeded expectations. 8.5 million passengers used the Nottingham tram line in its first year, surpassing the predicted levels by around 14%. In the second year, there were 9.7 million trips, a further rise of 8%. One year after opening in June 2004, the LUAS tram system in Dublin had carried nearly 16.5 million passengers.
Also, every £1 invested to introduce trams provides £1.63 of benefits for Edinburgh. This return makes it an extremely good project. How were the tram routes selected? The routes were assessed on a number of criteria, in line with guidance from the Scottish Executive. These included environmental impact; economic and employment benefits; integration with other transport modes; improved safety and security; and ease of access to the residential and business community.
The line from Leith to Edinburgh Airport provides direct links from the city centre to the city’s economic growth areas, both commercial and residential, in the west of Edinburgh and Leith. It will also see the creation of major transport hubs at Haymarket, the foot of the Walk, St Andrew Square and Edinburgh Airport.
And how about this BBC report:
‘Trams bring many unique benefits’
Work on the project to bring trams to Edinburgh is well under way. Phil Wheeler, Edinburgh City Council’s transport convener, looks at the benefits he believes they will bring.
Over the past few years Edinburgh’s economy has been booming and all indications are that this period of prosperity is likely to continue.
With forecasters predicting as many as 30,000 new jobs in the next 10 years we have to plan for how a small city manages this type of growth.
We cannot build roads to meet the needs of our future, and present citizens, nor can we create more car parks to accommodate the growing number of vehicles coming into the city.
Edinburgh just does not have the space for this. So we must look for practical solutions and creating an integrated, high capacity public transport system is just such a solution.
Trams are integral to this. While Edinburgh has excellent bus services, buses are not the answer on their own.
They share the road network with other users, and can suffer from the consequences of road congestion, which means less reliability and higher operating costs.
‘Growing demand’
With a dedicated track and many sections off-road, trams are less susceptible to these problems and can carry three times more people than buses.
Without trams, there is no practical way to meet the growing demand for public transport along the booming waterfront to Airport route.
Buses will continue to be a hugely important part of our transport network though and will be integrated with trams.
Evidence from other cities where the introduction of trams has been hugely successful shows that commuters, residents, businesses and visitors enjoy quicker journeys to work and shops, more investment in the city, more accessible public transport and cleaner air.
Trams bring many more unique benefits to a city. People love using trams, so they bring new shoppers and residents into areas.
Critically, businesses know just how popular and beneficial trams are and are so very keen to be sited near them.
Extensive planning
This leads to more investment to a city. This can take the form of new jobs, new shops, new housing and new leisure opportunities.
Of course we’re aware that you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs and there will be disruption across the route while construction of the tram scheme is under way.
We do apologise for this, but the work that’s gone on so far has been undertaken with extensive planning and consultation with local communities and our contractors have striven where possible to ensure any disruption to homes and businesses is kept to a minimum and this will continue whenever a new work site gets under way.
It’s taken us a long time to get to this point and the proposals have not been without their detractors.
However, I believe the case for trams has been well made and I look forward to seeing them up-and-running on our streets in 2011.
So how is Penang any different from Edinburgh – though our bus service still has a long, long way to go. The point is why opt for expensive multi-billion ringgit solutions with either questionable returns or environmental problems? Notice that the RM4.3 billion (and rising?) second Penang bridge has already been delayed by nine months before actual construction work can even start. If we go down this path, expect huge cost-overruns, further delays and more disputes between consortium partners. What will happen to the fishing communities? Or are they irrelevant in this age of rising food prices?
Public transport can be improved in several ways:
- Come up with a state-wide public transport master plan to make sure the system is integrated. Don’t make the same mistakes that KL did with its piece-meal LRT and monorail systems.
- Get the interchanges right between ferry terminals and trams/buses, between trams and buses, between cross channel over-sea rail link and buses/trams, between KTM rail on the mainland and buses/trams. This is crucial for an integrated system.
- Think of a cross-channel rail link instead of the second road bridge. The additional lane on the Penang Bridge could be used for rail transport or build a parallel rail link.
- Expand the ferry service and build more terminals at other locations on both the mainland and the island. Remember, the ferry service has been intentionally neglected ever since the Penang Bridge was built, contributing to the congestion on the bridge. The old ferry terminal (which operated alongside the new one) that collapsed in Butterworth was never rebuilt. In fact, today there are only about half the number of ferries compared to the number plying the channel in the 1970s.
- Allow for trams and buses to complement each other. For an excellent bus network, check out the Curitiba rapid bus transit system.
- Appoint independent public transport consultants with no vested interests in large companies selling their monorail/LRT/subway/bridge wares. The prime objective should be what’s good for the people of Penang including local communities, and the state rather than for the order books of giant infrastructure firms.
- Discourage private vehicle ownership and stop building infrastructure for cars and other private vehicles. This will be easier to do once we have an excellent public transport system so that people have a viable and attractive alternative.
- Remember pedestrians and cyclists. Make the streets safer for them. Turn some of the streets in Penang to pedestrian walkways with sidewalk cafes.
- Don’t reinvent the wheel. Learn from Curitiba’s rapid bus transit system and its innovative urban development programme. Small can be beautiful and visionary too!
Curitiba and its visionary mayor
Residents of Curitiba, Brazil, think they live in the best city in the world, and a lot of outsiders agree. Curibita has 17 new parks, 90 miles of bike paths, trees everywhere, and traffic and garbage systems that officials from other cities come to study. Curibita’s mayor for twelve years, Jaime Lerner, has a 92 per cent approval rating.
There is nothing special about Curitiba’s history, location or population. Like all Latin American cities, the city has grown enormously – from 150,000 people in the 1950s to 1.6 million now. It has its share of squatter settlements, where fewer than half the people are literate. Curibita’s secret, insofar that it has one, seems to be simple willingness from the people at the top to get their kicks from solving problems.
Those people at the top started in the 1960s with a group of young architects who were not impressed by the urban fashion of borrowing money for big highways, massive buildings, shopping malls and other showy projects. They were thinking about the environment and about human needs. They approached Curibita’s mayor, pointed to the rapid growth of the city and made a case for better planning.
The mayor sponsored a contest for a Curibita master plan. He circulated the best entries, debated them with the citizens, and then turned the people’s comments over to the upstart architects, asking them to develop and implement a final plan.
Jaime Lerner was one of these architects. In 1971 he was appointed mayor by the then military government of Brazil.
Given Brazil’s economic situation, Lerner had to think small, cheap and participatory – which was how he was thinking anyway. He provided 1.5 million tree seedlings to neighbourhoods for them to plant and care for. (‘There is little in the architecture of a city that is more beautifully designed than a tree,’ says Lerner.)
He solved the city’s flood problems by diverting water from lowlands into lakes in the new parks. He hired teenagers to keep the parks clean.
He met resistance from shopkeepers when he proposed turning the downtown shopping district into a pedestrian zone, so he suggested a thirty-day trial. The zone was so popular that shopkeepers on the other streets asked to be included. Now one pedestrian street, the Rua das Flores, is lined with gardens tended by street children.
Orphaned or abandoned street children are a problem all over Brazil. Lerner got each industry, shop and institution to ‘adopt’ a few children, providing them with a daily meal and a small wage in exchange for simple maintenance gardening or office chores.
Another Lerner innovation was to organise the street vendors into a mobile, open-air fair that circulates through the city’s neighbourhoods.
Concentric circles of local bus lines connect to five lines that radiate from the centre of the city in a spider web pattern. On the radial lines, triple-compartment buses in their own traffic lanes carry three hundred passengers each. They go as fast as subway cars, but at one-eightieth the construction cost.
The buses stop at Plexiglas tube stations designed by Lerner. Passengers pay their fares, enter through one end of the tube, and exit from the other end. This system eliminates paying on board, and allows faster loading and unloading, less idling and air pollution, and a sheltered place for waiting – though the system is so efficient that there isn’t much waiting. There isn’t much littering either. There isn’t time.
Curitiba’s citizens separate their trash into just two categories, organic and inorganic, for pick-up by two kinds of trucks. Poor families in squatter settlements that are unreachable by trucks bring their trash bags to neighbourhood centres, where they can exchange them for bus tickets or for eggs, milk, oranges and potatoes, all bought from outlying farms.
The trash goes to a plant (itself built of recycled materials) that employs people to separate bottles from cans from plastic. The workers are handicapped people, recent immigrants, alcoholics.
Recovered materials are sold to local industries. Styrofoam is shredded to stuff quilt for the poor. The recycling programme costs no more than the old landfill, but the city is cleaner, there are more jobs, farmers are supported and the poor get food and transportation. Curitiba recycles two-thirds of it garbage – one of the highest rates of any city, north or south.
Curitiba builders get a tax break if their projects include green areas.
Jaime Lerner says, ‘There is no endeavour more noble than the attempt to achieve a collective dream. When a city accepts as a mandate its quality of life; when it respects the people who live in it; when it respects the environment; when it prepares for future generations, the people share the responsibility for that mandate, and this shared cause is the only way to achieve that collective dream.’ (globalideasbank.org)
An impassioned plea to save the environment from a 12-year-old
Severn Cullis-Suzuki (born 1979) is an environmental activist, speaker, television host and author. Born to writer Tara Elizabeth Cullis and Canadian geneticist and environmental activist David Suzuki, Cullis-Suzuki received a B.Sc. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Yale University in 2002. She has spoken around the world about environmental issues, urging listeners to define their values, act with the future in mind, and take individual responsibility.
In 1992, at the age of 12, Cullis-Suzuki raised money with members of ECO, the Environmental Childrens Organization (a group she founded) to attend the Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro. Along with group members Michelle Quigg, Vanessa Suttie, and Morgan Geisler, Severn presented environmental issues from a youth perspective at the Summit, where she received a standing ovation for a speech to the delegates. The group also addressed delegates at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).