Commuters in the Klang Valley are currently facing one of the worst public transport outages ever after 16 stations along the LRT Kelana Jaya Line were suspended for a week. Former Transport Minister Anthony Loke said upgrading the entire LRT system would be a top priority if the Pakatan Harapan coalition regains power after the 15th General Election.
According to Anthony, the LRT system’s 300,000 daily passengers needed a safe and reliable public transport system. He added that Kuala Lumpur’s LRT system has been facing frequent malfunctions and needs a long-term programme to solve it.
The DAP secretary-general said the LRT Kelana Jaya Line “relies on an automated system, and this system is having problems now. So it needs to be prioritised and the government needs to use more resources to fix this system or use a new one.”
“I wouldn’t know how this works on a technical level, but the government definitely needs to fix this fast,” he added.
Anthony Loke is currently Seremban’s Member of Parliament candidate and he was the former Transport Minister from 2018 until the fall of the Pakatan Harapan government in February 2020.
At the time of writing, caretaker Transport Minister Dr Wee Ka Siong has yet to issue a statement on the recent LRT disruption. His silence on the issue prompted netizens to slam him on social media for not responding to the matter.
Rapid KL via Prasarana held a press conference this morning which didn’t provide much assurance on the issue. Prasarana CEO Mohd Azharuddin Mat Sah said this is a serious issue which has never happened before and a special team from Thales Group from Canada is expected to arrive tomorrow to look for a short- and long-term solution to the problem. Azharuddin mentioned that the company is planning to compensate some 200,000 commuters who are affected by the outage. In the meantime, they have deployed 73 buses to service to transport commuters.
LRT stations from Kelana Jaya to Ampang Park will remain closed from today, 9th until 15th November 2022. Meanwhile, other remaining stations between Putra Heights to Lembah Subang, and Damai to Gombak, will operate from 6am to 11pm.
[ SOURCE, IMAGE SOURCE ]
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