It appears that the federal government is going ahead with a RM50 million plan to introduce water taxis and build more jetties in Penang Island and on the mainland.
Najib approved the conceptual plan in July. A month earlier, this blog had suggested that the Penang Port look into emulating Bangkok’s river buses along the Chao Phraya River.
But the devil is in the details. Now they are talking about allowing private firms to run the water taxi service. In the first phase, they want to target foreign tourists. The public would be targeted only in phase three. This is so unlike the low-cost river buses in Bangkok, where the passengers are mainly locals and the fares are low (apart from the separate cruise boats catering for the tourists). Public transport works best when the fares are affordable (even if it means government subsidies for an essential service) – but you can’t have affordable fares if you have private firms hoping to make huge profits.
Meanwhile, all the various parties appear to be doing their own thing. You have the bridge firms (federal) working on the second bridge, Penang Port working on the ferries and water taxis, Rapid Penang (federal) upgrading the bus service, the Penang state government reportedly looking into monorail, a proposal to revive the Penang Outer Ring Road on the cards, the aerorail proposal, and the new Penang Transport Council probably not being consulted on some of these projects. What a jolly rojak!
