Traffic troubles: Penang mulls allowing bus lanes for full cars

GEORGE TOWN – The Penang Island City Council is mulling allowing vehicles carrying a full load of passengers to use public bus lanes as part of new measures to arrest the worsening road congestion here.

Commenting on the traffic jams that have become notorious in Penang, Penang Island City Council secretary Datuk A. Rajendran shared how it is trying to help the state cope with the surge in vehicles.

Among the plans, which require federal approval and cooperation, is to allow fully loaded cars access to bus lanes, he said in an interview.

He said that it is an incentive, but vehicles with single or double occupants would still have to use the normal road lanes to reach their destinations.

This can encourage car-pooling in Penang, he added.

Traffic congestion has laid siege on the island over the past week, such that the council was forced to deploy its traffic wardens to disperse traffic.

Rajendran, the architect of Penang Island City Council’s last major move to ease traffic in 2009, said that public education about carpooling needs to be improved.

He supported the idea of giving more incentives to reduce the number of cars on the road, saying that the city council is also thinking about imposing congestion charges and has toyed with the idea of confining many streets here for just pedestrians.

“But the warmer climate and the ensuing heat wave makes it difficult,” he said.

He said that the council has mooted many concepts to the federal authorities in the past years, but many were not taken up.

However, there are some breakthroughs. He cited that the free Central Area Transit (CAT) bus service operated by Rapid Penang between Bukit Mertajam and the island has been a resounding success, with encouraging passenger loads.

Rajendran was responding to the grouses expressed by Kebun Bunga assemblyman Jason Ong Khan Lee who suggested that the state authorities do something now in view of the worsening traffic conditions.

Ong said that the state cannot wait until components of the Penang Transport Master Plan are ready to ensure better traffic management.

He proposed congestion charges, tax breaks to ratepayers who give up using private vehicles, steep car parking charges and restriction zones.

He also suggested that the government step in to ensure airfares during the festive periods were kept at affordable rates to encourage holidaymakers to fly rather than drive to their respective destinations. – The Vibes, January 22, 2023