KUALA LUMPUR, June 8 — The Penang Exco for Infrastructure and Transport, Zairil Khir Johari, has admitted that the proposed Penang LRT project lacks the necessary ridership to be sustainable. Initially advocating for the full-scale LRT, Zairil now suggests starting with a very light system of two-carriage trains, potentially upgrading to a medium system with four or five carriages later on. Despite the scale, about 80% of the RM10.5 billion budget is earmarked for infrastructure, benefiting developers more than the public.
Questions have been raised about how the LRT project received approval without sufficient ridership to justify it. During a public briefing in December 2022, a consultant claimed high-density apartments would be built near stations to boost ridership—a speculative statement without basis. Concerns have emerged that the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), prepared by developer-hired consultants, may have misrepresented ridership figures to secure government approval. If the ridership projections were indeed falsified, critics argue the EIA report should be discarded and the LRT project scrapped in favor of alternatives like the Autonomous Rapid Transit (ART), successfully implemented in cities such as Kuching and Putrajaya.
