This is the third article in a series to explain why Penang State Government should commission an independent review of the SRS proposed Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP).
Dr Ahmad Hilmy, Associate Professor, USM. Technology cluster — transport system and Dr Lim Mah Hui is a former professor, international banker and Penang Island city councillor.
This is the second article in a series to explain why the Penang government should review the Penang transport masterplan. Written by Ahmad Hilmy and Lim Mah Hui.
The state government, in trying to defend the mega Pan Island Link highway project (proposed by a major contractor and two Penang-based property developers), has lambasted critics for posting “misleading visuals” which it described as “fake”.
Roger Teoh, a PhD postgraduate studying at the Centre for Transport Studies, Imperial College London, has come up with an immediate rebuttal of the Penang state government’s latest attempt to defend the RM9bn mega highway project proposed by a major contractor and two Penang-based developers.
The RM9bn six-lane highway which will tunnel through 10km of the hills of Penang are “clearly incompatible” with plans to get Unesco to list the hill as a protected biosphere, a former senior Unesco advisor has said.
The six-lane highway will now go below the funicular railway (instead of over it), increasing the total length of all the tunnel stretches from over 7km to over 10km along the 19.5km route. (Did someone just realise how ludicrous it would look for the highway to fly over the hill railway?)
Here it comes. A groundswell of protest is building up against the extravagant plan for an RM8bn 19.5km six-lane highway, which will mar the beauty and tranquility of the Sungai Ara Linear Park and the Penang Youth Park and affect hundreds of homes and businesses on the island.
Before the current plan for an extravagant RM8bn 19.5km six-lane Pan Island Link (PIL) highway, there was the RM1.0bn 17km four-lane Penang Outer Ring Road project, which was eventually scrapped following an outcry from the then opposition party in Penang, the DAP.
Many Malaysians have this perception that eating places staffed by foreign workers are less hygienic.
An overseas-bases international banker working with a prominent global financial institution has criticised the Request for Proposals procurement method used to select a project delivery partner to implement the Halcrow masterplan.