Efficient buses - a shattered elusive dream

Electric tram on Weld Quay, circa 1910

Growing up in RRF, buses were the most important, of not the only form of transportation. In fact, for the middle class and the downtrodden part of the society, public transport play a crucial if not romanticized part of their everyday lives as evident from the numerous movies based on journeys! In our minds (the RRF dwellers), getting away from the clutches on the curse of dependence on buses as the sole form of movement is a way of escaping poverty. That would explain why we (my siblings and I) have not traveled in bus for years!

Buses in Malaysia (especially Penang) carry a very long history predating Independence in tandem with the advancement in railroads. Despite the accusations hurled at the colonial master for squandering wealth from the land of its conquests, they did establish a sound transportation system. In Penang, they experimented with many state of the art (then) gadgets like the tram service and funicular train service as part of community service responsibility.

Mana mau pigi?

I remember a time in our nation's history when many private bus venture companies were operating in major towns on the west coast of Malaysia. There was even a Punjabi family running a town bus service in Seremban. Workers from Selangor Omnibus company even created history when they erected a workers strike in their HQ with Communist Party of Malaysia having a hand in it sparking barbed wired barricades and showdown with FRU around Bukit Tunku area bringing the capital city to a standstill.

Lim Seng Seng Bus

Despite their imperfections, we still romanticize the moments of shoving through the crowd and running after a bus which stopped way off the designated bus-stop to drop passengers in the hope of squeezing through the sardine packed bus door!

Bus No 24-Ayer Itam route

All that has come to naught now! Buses in many states have stalled and brakes have been put on some of its so-called unprofitable routes.Why?
It all started in the gung ho days of the Mahathir era when the powers that be decided that we must have a unified establishment to oversee the running of buses (no-brainer to guess who the beneficiaries were). This was decided after short study-cum-holiday trips by officials to countries with enviable public transport system (whilst making a short stop with family and maid who incidentally flew 1st class). People  who were least interested in business or were hard working enough were assigned to run the show with unnecessary interventions by politicians who were more interested in populists' view. And it has come to this. This essential service has come to a halt. Public is held at ransom and sympathy is gained by sob story so that public funds can be channeled to them to satisfy their bottomless pit desire.