Malacca Monorail Services Upgrades State's Status

For Malaccan, we have been long-waited for the RM 16 million Malacca Monorail Service, and finally, it was launched yesterday afternoon in conjunction with the declaration of the Historical City as a so called "Developed State". According to Malacca Chief Minister, the new transportation service is another milestone for Malacca of developing a first class public transportation system. He mentioned that the service is on track with the historical state attaining the "developed state" status accorded by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The developed state status was achieved after Malacca had met 29 of the 32 criteria set by the OECD. OECD is a grouping of world's 33 richest countries with the highest per capita GDP,which headquatered in Paris. In the list, Turkey is the country with the lowest per capita GNP at US$13,000 (RM 49,000) while Malacca is at US$15,578.

I was curious about the effort of Malacca government in achieving the status of developed state, and the goal for offering Malacca Monorail Service is questionable for achieving that status! First, who uses the service? Of course, is tourist, its for tourism purposes. Do you think as local citizens we will take the service as a medium of public transportation at early of 7.30am and take again at the late of evening? Of course NO...because it is EXPENSIVE...RM10 per route. Let's count: A local citizen need to spend RM 400 (20 working days) if he or she uses the service...better than taking buses, right? So, the service is not to upgrade the standard of living among local citizens. Secondly, how far the service could solve the problem of traffic jamp in the city by looking the max capicity of 10 passenegrs per route, and it does not take you far which is only 1.6km. If your workplace located further than the route, what for?Funny right? The places coverage, rate and capacity needed to be restudied!

I hope for the state coming projects, the state government should not "do something to achieve something"...but to "do something to solve problem"...then only the state could be "developed".