More about Ipoh

Our recent posting discussed the status of public transport in the state of Perak.

It was reported that Ipoh Sentral, a project planned by the Pakatan Rakyat government, was still being considered. However, the current BN government is looking towards improving the public transport terminals at Medan Kidd and Medan Gopeng and asking the new consortium, Combined Bus Services Sdn. Bhd. to provide more information about their route plans.

The article below shares a little bit more information about the PR and BN proposals … and what we at TRANSIT see is that public transport plans may become a hot political issue in the state very soon.

Read the article and give us your feedback.

Ipoh terminal plan still alive
Wednesday July 1, 2009
BY CLARA CHOOI

THE Ipoh Central Terminal Hub, a Perak Pakatan Rakyat project aimed at easing the city’s public transport problems, is still on but the group undertaking the project must give the state government a proper proposal.

Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abd Kadir said he had instructed the group to hand him a more comprehensive proposal than the present one so that they will be able to work things out as soon as possible.

“I have already instructed the state authorities to allow the group to acquire the piece of land where the bus terminal will be built,” he said.

Dr Zambry, who was speaking to reporters after distributing education aid to 442 students at the State Secretariat on Monday, said the current city bus terminals in Medan Kidd and Medan Gopeng needed to be improved instead of being relocated.

In September last year, the Pakatan Rakyat-led government signed an agreement with Combined Bus Services Sdn Bhd, a consortium of 14 city bus operators which agreed to invest RM38mil to construct the terminal in Meru Raya and a further RM150mil to equip the city with 300 modern air-conditioned coaches.

According to former exco member in charge of public transport Nga Kor Ming, a groundbreaking ceremony had already been held at the 3.4ha site allocated for the terminal.

“The consortium has already spent some RM2mil on its first batch of buses which were supposed to be plying the city routes earlier this year,” he said when contacted.

“There was even a competition to name the buses and we had already decided on the name ‘Perak Flyer’.” [TRANSIT: Perak Flyer … comments, anyone?]

Nga alleged that Dr Zambry had offered the consortium the land premium at market rate while Pakatan’s agreement was to give them a nominal premium.

“How can the investors pay so much?” he asked.

TRANSIT Says:

A little bit of politics is always fun to watch. We can only hope that the service is improved as a result of the attention of politicians of both sides.