Public Transports in KL

Posted by Ruslim Chang at 6:30 PM - Tuesday, July 1, 2008

"You must be kidding!", said one of the staff who took care of the training facility. He is so surprised to learn that I have been staying for 4 years in Kuala Lumpur and yet I dont own car at all. "I dont know how you survive in KL without a car", he lamented. "I take a train and then later catch a taxi from the LRT station to work, and that's why I choose apartment nearby the LRT station", I explained. "Wow, it's unbelieveable!", he exclaimed.

Back in my country, We are so used to driving every where we go. You can hardly survive if you have to rely on the public transport. There is no train service to the main streets of the city. If you take a bus, there are a lot of pick pockets who are going to make you as their victims. Furthermore, you are not sure when the bus will come and... go. Yes, they are so irregular, even after you get onto it, the bus will not go immediately, as they want to take as many more passengers as possible.

When I came to KL, I was surprised to see that KL have quite a good public transport: LRT, Monorail, ERL, buses, and taxis. Eventough the public transport does not cover every places where I want to go, for example, if I want to go to Sunway there is no direct train from my place to that famous shopping and entertainment center. However if I want to save some money, I still can take a train and then follow by a taxi to get there.

However, as soon as my son reached the schooling age, we decided to buy a car because the school is quite a distance from my apartment. You might ask the reason why we send him to a school far from our place - let's talk about it later. We actually can still take a train to the nearest LRT station. From there, the school is just around 30 minutes walk. Or if we are lucky to catch a taxi (it's extremely difficult to get a taxi in the morning), we can arrive school without sweating a lot. However, in order to do this, we need to get up very early in the morning, before 6am, so that we can leave our place at 6.30am. And you know it's not easy for my son to get up that early in the morning, not easy also for me and wife who has to get up at least 30 minutes earlier. And poor my son too have to start his class with a wet shirt after morning walk from the station. So we decided it's time to have our own car.

The other reason to have a car, is that so we can easily go for our spiritual activities, like meeting and field service. Especially during raining season, it's normally quite difficult to catch a taxi, or even just to walk out from our apartment. So, we decided that it's time to be more independent, as not to burden our brothers and sisters anymore, as they normally give us a lift.

Even after we have our own car now, we dont plan to use it all the time. If it's more economical to take a public transport, then we use public transport. For example, one day I took my car to a nearby bank, and found it difficult to get a parking space. After looking around for a while, I ended up parking quite far away from the bank, which cost me RM 6. It's not economical, as that same amount is the return trip fare for a taxi - And I have not included the fuel cost over here. And it's not convenient as well, as I still have to walk quite a distance from the parking place to the bank. So, it's logical sometime, just to leave the car alone and use public transport instead.

Life is beautiful! Let's make it meaningful and colorful!