KUALA LUMPUR – With most of the city’s major roads closed for the National Day parade, many attendees relied on public transport for travel today.
However, this experience left much to be desired as malfunctioning escalators, ticketing machines, and gantries at LRT stations resulted in massive bottlenecks.
At the Masjid Jamek LRT station – an interchange for the Kelana Jaya and Sri Petaling LRT lines – at least half of the ticketing machines were not in operation.
Additionally, out of eight exit gantries at the station, only one accepted tokens while the rest were reserved for Touch ‘N Go cards.
A commuter, who wished to remain anonymous, questioned why the LRT operators did not open more gantries as “they should have known the crowds would be big”.
The Vibes also observed long queues resulting from malfunctioning gantries at the Pasar Seni LRT station.
Furthermore, the situation there was aggravated by the arrival of the LRT and MRT lines at the same time. This resulted in at least 500 commuters crowding the exits.
“How can?” asked a commuter named Nana, adding “it’s as if there was no planning at all.”
Meanwhile, frustration with the LRT lines was shared by a number of social media users.
Twitter user @arnaabkr shared photos of crowds at the Masjid Jamek LRT station along with the caption: “This is just an LRT station, not even the afterlife (padang mahsyar).”
Another user, @shahhazhar, directed a tweet at the police, saying that the crowds at Masjid Jamek were “too cramped” as people were packed like sardines and “children were suffering from heatstroke”.
Another user, @ediashraff, lamented that crowds at the Bandaraya LRT station were “pushing and shoving like cows out of a stable”.
At 8.10am, LRT operator Rapid Rail Sdn Bhd tweeted that the Bandaraya station was closed as “its surroundings were full of commuters”.
An hour later at 9.05am, it announced that platform 1 of the Masjid Jamek station was closed due to overcrowding.
By 10am, however, both stations were reopened and resumed their regular services.
The 2022 National Day celebration was expected to draw at least 50,000 people, but it is reported that close to 100,000 people were in attendance.
The large-scale celebrations this year were packed with events as the country had scaled downed ones in the last two years due to the pandemic lockdowns. – The Vibes, August 31, 2022
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