MRT Line 2 alignment has been given conditional approval. Mass Rapid Transit Corp Sdn Bhd (MRT) said that it will be planning an initial tendering process by year-end. All the stations would be revealed soon, second quarter of 2015. Proposed route going into Pandan has been changed to Bandar Malaysia instead. This will complement and connect it to the high-speed rail (HSR) project which is likely to be based there too.
I have recently been to Pandan and the catchment area is huge. As for Bandar Malaysia, by the time MRT Line 2 completes, it should also provide a huge enough catchment area. MRT Line 3 will pass through Pandan instead. Please do not think about this year. MRT Line 2 itself would already take MANY years to complete and many circumstances may change too. Who knows the growth was way above expectations and MRT Line 3 is much bigger than what is envisioned today? Let’s hope for that.
MRT Line 2 is a very important infrastructure project and this was shown when the budget cut did not touch it at all. This is the same for LRT 3 project, the HSR project, the Pan-Borneo Highway and the Refinery and Petrochemicals Integrated Development project in Pengerang. The total development expenditure for all these comes to RM48.5bil. MRT Line 2 costs an estimated RM23 Billion and has 40 stations stretching from Sungai Buloh (nearby my home) to Serdang and onwards to Putrajaya. Depending on the final alignment, it should be ready within 5 years.
MRT Line 3 is likely to be an orbital train system running around the Kuala Lumpur city centre. This will connect the city to the whole Greater Kuala Lumpur plan. The current MRT Line 1 project delivery partners would again be reappointed to the same role. In brief, it meant that if it completes on time, the delivery partners get paid and if not, they have to pay for the delay. I think it’s a good structure because for a very long time, projects tend to be delayed instead of on schedule. As for MRT Line 1, overall progress stood at 58.5% with the underground and most expensive portion 10 weeks ahead of schedule!
I have always believed MRT Line 1 would be on time though as usual due to the size of the project many were skeptical. If we look at the property prices along the routes of MRT Line 1, we can already see the demand is much higher than those without any stations nearby. I have written about this before. Read here: The Accessibility’ Popularity. Personally, I still think buyers should exercise caution and not simply pay for the sky when developers tell them that the new project is within walking distance from MRT. One word, affordability. No matter what happens, when it is too expensive, I would rather stay a little far away and not next to or very close to MRT stations. In fact some prefer to stay slightly further away too. Happy following the progress.
written on 12 Feb 2015
Next suggested article: Slow 2015? Not for construction.
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