Selamat sejahtera, dan Salam Malaysia Baru.
Wow, it’s been a while. A very long while, like, Old Malaysia during the Badawi/Najib while. In case you’ve managed to miss the last 5 years like we did on this blog, here’s a quick summary:
- New Urbanist Memes for Transit Oriented Teens, and New Urbanism in general, gets propelled into the spotlight
- The 9th iteration of the World Urban Forum was held in Kuala Lumpur, with a Kuala Lumpur Declaration forming part of a wider New Urban Agenda from UN-Habitat
- The Barisan Nasional coalition has lost to the Pakatan Harapan coalition after 60 years of uninterrupted government during the May 9th, 2018 polls
- The MRT Sungai Buloh – Kajang Line was finished, along with an extension of the Kelana Jaya and Sri Petaling Lines. MRT Sungai Buloh – Serdang – Putrajaya Line now under construction
- The BRT (read – the boondoggle of Bandar Sunway) was completed as well – reports of low ridership continue to plague the system
- The MRT Circle Line, ECRL and HSR are on the way to being scrapped, or are already scrapped at this point. Klang Valley Double Tracking project is still going, albeit a bit slower than expected
On our side, we’ve started working to bring Transit Malaysia back online, through developing a new set of principles and objectives which suit the newfound climate of freedoms in New Malaysia. We’ll also be considering new, radical approaches to organising and working with diverse local communities so that they have a say, and thus, the freedoms to mould our cities.
The Malaysian Urban Forum
The Malaysian Urban Forum is happening today and tomorrow! It is a national forum that builds on the discussion during the 9th World Urban Forum held by UN-HABITAT, as well as a shared ideal of making the cities of the world resilient, livable and enjoyable through the sharing of ideas. There will be stakeholder meetings between government and people, exhibitions from local councils, the corporate sector and Federal Government about specific topics of the city and what the city of the future looks like.
Registrations are essential; do come along to this two-day event and leave a comment if you’d like to meet up during the event (we are all nerds in this but we don’t bite – email us) or if you’d like to explain your experiences and thoughts of the forum.
What we’ve been doing, and a recruitment plug
We’ve started to reassemble an all-new team of people to run Transit Malaysia, with the help and the astounding knowledge of the old guards – without their past efforts and work, Transit would not be at the stature that it is today.
We have had our first meeting to figure out our basic principles – these principles will be released for public comment as soon as we’ve got a proper, agreed draft in order. These principles will guide our future activities, as well as inform our responses to urban planning issues in our city.
We’ll also be writing on this blog and our social media more to cover an ever-changing landscape of planning in and outside of Malaysia to keep y’all woke af like a NUMTOT.
Also, we are currently looking for volunteers to help write our principles and deal with admin, plan grassroots campaigns and interventions, as well as meme-lords to keep the good Transit Oriented Remajas of Malaysia informed on our social media channels, so click or tap here to register as a volunteer.
We’ll keep you updated as more details are available. But for now, see you at Malaysian Urban Forum! Leave us a comment if you’ve got any comments or if you’d like to contribute to the discussion.
Transit Malaysia 