Full and open access to key documents and reports necessary for full public, NGO, media and international expert review, questions and commentary on the costs, technical details, analysis and justifications for the RM27-50 billion (it apparently depends on who you ask and when) Penang Transport Master Plan has been seriously inhibited by the State government and their property development consultants and partners (SRS Consortium).
In the face of this resistance an informal citizen alliance and NGO task force has emerged and started to assemble and make freely available a growing library of key documents. At present there are more than 200 volumes and working papers already assembled in the library at https://goo.gl/xjCRT9.
The latest three additions have been posted into the library today. They concern the SRS property consultant’s RM27-50 billion proposal for the Bayan Lepas Light Rail Transit (LRT). under the Penang Transport Master Plan : a planned 22 kilometre-LRT line connecting Komtar with the Bayan Lepas Free Industrial Zone and Penang International Airport to the south.
The three latest volumes now available on line for free public inspection are:
- BLLRT Volume 1 – Exec Summary – https://goo.gl/jhfevb
- BLLRT Volume 2 – Main Report – https://goo.gl/vavQsT
- BLLRT Volume 3 – Appendix – https://goo.gl/nBVbSJ
Thanks to all of you who have stepped up with additional important materials. If you can help with further additions we all would be most grateful.
Technical note:
For the record: Every effort appears to have been made to ensure that these reports did not enter into the public domain and hence be available for independent citizen review under appropriate circumstances (i.e., democratically open and online).
These were actually posted to the Penang government website. However, they were posted as over 1000 individual pictures, impossible to read and reflect on comfortably. The consultants will surely not have submitted a report as pictures, so we can assume that Penang state government have purposely converted these already very dense reports into individual images to make them hard if not impossible to read and refelct on. Our generous colleagues took the time to use software to scrape all the thousand-plus individual images, then converted them into a readable PDF. Which is what you can see here.
Never underestimate the power of a concerned citizen in an educated democratic society. Civil society the last bastion of democracy.
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Sustainable Penang Open Transport Library (as of this date):
- Halcrow reports 2011-2013 – https://goo.gl/6jmq2L (25 documents)
- State government and consultants – https://goo.gl/p6ou1y (12 )
- Useful references – https://goo.gl/GHynRo (82)
- Future visions of Penang – https://goo.gl/anhtXJ (16)
- Sustainable Penang Forum Open House Archives – https://goo.gl/U7ZK4t (29)
- Sustainable Penang classics – https://goo.gl/MQbMvo (21)
- EcoPlan/World Streets reports – https://goo.gl/LwePj3 (87)
Note: the library is still in very rough shape but is fully accessible. A couple of days of careful work by a competent librarian would help a lot. But more important at this point is to find those “missing” key reports and documents which are being kept out of the public’s hands for appropriate reading, reflection and review.
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Responsible for this posting:
Eric Britton
13, rue Pasteur. Courbevoie 92400 France
Bio: Founding editor of World Streets (1988), Eric Britton is an American political scientist, teacher, occasional consultant, and sustainability activist who has observed, learned, taught and worked on missions and advisory assignments on all continents. In the autumn of 2019, he committed his remaining life work to the challenges of aggressively countering climate change and specifically greenhouse gas emissions emanating from the mobility sector. He is not worried about running out of work. Further background and updates: @ericbritton | http://bit.ly/2Ti8LsX | #fekbritton | https://twitter.com/ericbritton | and | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericbritton/ Contact: climate@newmobility.org) | +336 508 80787 (Also WhatApp) | Skype: newmobility.)
WORLD STREETS __ A New Mobility Action Plan for 2022 