Quick LRT ride to work, but an hour by bus to the station

November 13, 2023

Quick LRT ride to work, but an hour by bus to the station

PETALING JAYA: Veronica Elankovan takes a quick ride by LRT to go to work – but sometimes it takes her more than an hour just to get to the station by bus from her home.

It’s a bit of a walk to the bus stop, she says. “Often, I still have to get my mum to take me to the station,” she told FMT. “If she’s not available I have to take a Grab.”

She said the internal buses in her neighbourhood in Puchong are not very frequent. “I have to wait over an hour sometimes,” she said when met near the Asia Jaya LRT station in Petaling Jaya.

Veronica, 30, complained that some buses were not on time. Sometimes she has seen three buses on the same route arriving at the same time.

Raymond Lee, a secondary school student who uses public transport to get to school, said he relies on his parents to take him to the nearest LRT station as there aren’t any feeder bus stations within a walkable distance.
“If my parents are unavailable, I often have to use a Grab car. Each trip costs more than RM10. I feel that I’ve spent quite a lot on Grab. Taking a bus would definitely be cheaper,” said Lee, who lives in Taman Connaught, Cheras, Kuala Lumpur.

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“There should be more bus stations in residential areas; it appears like there’s (comparatively more in) town,” he said.

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Another student, Timothy Cheah, said there is a bus stop near his house in Taman Alam Damai, in Bandar Tun Razak, Kuala Lumpur. But he often finds himself asking friends or family members for a lift as the bus stop is in such poor condition.

“The facilities are incomplete. It only has a signpost and I have to wait by the roadside. It’s also surrounded by uncleared vegetation and I ended up feeding the mosquitoes when I’m there, so I don’t use it very often,” said Cheah.

The complaints of the three LRT commuters highlight the need for feeder buses which has often been raised by transport experts.

Last month, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced that RM600 billion has been set aside in the 2024 budget for transit operator Prasarana Malaysia Bhd to acquire 150 electric buses and construct three new bus depots.

However, the allocation was questioned by transport consultant Rosli Khan, who urged the government to focus on improving the efficiency of Rapid KL’s feeder buses. He said feeder services to LRT stations had been usurped by private car services like Grab.