A rebuttal of information on PTMP

Eric Cheah’s article about the Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP) is the latest example of misinformed and misleading opinion pieces about the project. I will provide extracts from the relevant documents to correct his misinformation.

Halcrow vs PTMP

The article claims that PTMP is a “gross deviation” from the Halcrow Plan. NGOs such as Penang Forum similarly propagate this misleading view, saying that the state government “doesn’t seem to be adopting anything from the Halcrow Report”.

This is wrong, as the PTMP is actually built on Halcrow’s recommendations. Many of the components of PTMP are based on Halcrow.

Take for example the Pan Island Link 1 (PIL 1). This highway was recommended by Halcrow, with a tunnel beneath Penang Hills under the name George Town Outer Bypass.

“Construction of the George Town Outer Bypass will require some 30% of the scheme to be constructed within a tunnel beneath the Penang Hills” (Halcrow Report: The Highway Improvement Plan, May 2013, page 15).

Cheah doesn’t seem to know that Halcrow recommended the construction of five highways, which includes the paired roads and undersea tunnel that he disapproves of.

Extracts from Halcrow documents on the paired roads and undersea tunnel:

“[New] Pair Road following the alignment of the island’s north coast, designed to reduce traffic activity on the existing road through Tanjung Tokong and Batu Feringgi” (Halcrow Report: The Highway Improvement Plan, May 2013, page 8).

“[There] is also a longer term need to provide additional vehicular crossing capacity between the mainland and Penang island, over and above that which will be provided through the opening of the Second Penang Crossing… it will be constructed as a tunnelled sea crossing” (Halcrow Report: The ‘Recommended Transport Master Plan Strategy’, March 2013, page 27).

It’s only out of ignorance about Halcrow and PTMP that Cheah and others (such as Penang Forum members) could believe the misleading view that “Halcrow focused on public transport, PTMP focused on highways”. As demonstrated in the evidence above, PTMP and its highway components were improvised based on Halcrow’s recommendations.

PTMP’s request for proposal was open tender

Cheah also wrongly wrote that the “PTMP we know today came to shape through a request for proposal (RFP), not an open tender”. This misleading view is also shared and propagated by Penang Forum.

The RFP method is internationally recognised as open tender and used by World Bank and the United Nations. The RFP used for PTMP was the same procurement method used for Halcrow.

Not only does Cheah fail to display any detailed knowledge of either Halcrow or PTMP, he doesn’t even know about RFP and yet criticises it.

Halcrow Plan begins on the island

Cheah also alleged that PTMP neglects the mainland since the project’s first phase begins on the island. This is another obvious sign that he is ignorant of Halcrow details:

“[The] most flexible way forward, in timetabling terms, would be to prioritise the George Town-Airport Line as the first scheme to be constructed…” (Halcrow Report: The ‘Recommended Transport Master Plan Strategy’, March 2013, page 56).

If Cheah really believes that Halcrow is good, then he shouldn’t have issue with Halcrow’s recommendation to begin on the island first. Either he is confused or he does not know what he is talking about.

Joshua Woo was a member of the traffic management committee and urban planning committee of the Seberang Perai Municipal Council.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.