KUALA LUMPUR – It makes no sense to have the proposed MRT3 route cut across the lowly-populated Bukit Gasing area, which is also home to a forest reserve, says Petaling Jaya MP Maria Chin Abdullah.
This follows heavy criticisms over her recent tweet describing the scrapping of the route, which would have seen an interchange station built on Jalan Gasing, as a “victory” for residents in the area. Several netizens chastised her for opposing accessible public transportation.
In a statement today, the PKR lawmaker explained that while she supports the need for more and better public transport, it should be sustainable and undertaken with full consideration for social, economic, and environmental impacts on people’s lives.
However, said the former Bersih 2.0 chairperson, the initial MRT route in Bukit Gasing was anything but.
She noted that the residential areas located there have low-density in population and have little issues with regards to mobility.
The plan was also “too high a price to pay to see another forest reserve being spliced”, she added.
She explained that this was why affected residents had protested the route, with among the key concerns raised being why such an important interchange is not located in high-density, developed central areas and why alternative routes were not considered to preserve the forest reserve.
According to her, several discussions were held between the various stakeholders in the past few months, where alternative proposals were mooted, such as allocating a route in areas where more people would benefit, subsequently reducing traffic in the long run.
The initially proposed MRT3 line would have seen an underground alignment under the Bukit Gasing forest reserve from Pantai Hillpark, passing under houses in Section 5, Petaling Jaya, before aligning with Jalan Gasing.
This would also necessitate the acquisition of shophouses at Section 10, she noted.
The MRT 3 will not be passing through Jalan Gasing and the homes in Section 5. This is indeed a victory for the residents. pic.twitter.com/ixQ2Pd1LES
— Maria Chin Abdullah (@mariachin) May 3, 2022
Chin stressed that with the new route, the MRT train line now passes by Bukit Gasing altogether and directly link the Pantai area to Universiti Malaya Medical Centre.
In a letter to Chin dated April 30, the Residents Association of Section 5 had said that the group has received a written confirmation from MRT Corp that the MRT3 alignment, also known as the Circle Line, will not pass through Jalan Gasing.
Sharing the news on her Twitter account on May 4, Chin said “this is indeed a victory for the residents”.
Her tweet had garnered some disagreeing responses, with the majority of users slamming the lawmaker for celebrating the rerouting of the rail line and for supposedly discouraging public transport usage in neighbourhood areas.
Some also accused her of only championing the voices of the rich who live in upscale Bukit Gasing and not ordinary citizens.
“In any development, there must be better ways to ensure buildings or transportation are more sustainable but yet developers do not seem to want to fit into a more people-oriented development,” Chin said today. – The Vibes, May 9, 2022
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