28/02/2023
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3479027238871645&id=640022356105495&mibextid=Nif5oz
Yes, the person in the selfie is, indeed, me (before growing some face hair) - standing in front of a high-speed train. It's Talgo 250, a Spanish trainset operating at 250 km/h. The train itself is nothing unusual but the location, that may be a bit unexpected...
Uzbekistan.
It's 2016 and I'm at a newly opened station platform in Bukhara, an ancient city in the south-central part of the country, bordering Turkmenistan, known for its collection of very well preserved architecture - a 600km ride from the capital in Tashkent that took only 3 hours and 20 minutes - less than half of the original 7 to 8 hour ride. This is the terminus of a HSR line which commenced services along 344km route between Tashkent and Samarkand in 2011 and was extended to its full length five years later.
The line proved to be a success and as it was operating at capacity, not only have new sets been ordered by the government in 2019 - but another extension is underway, expected to bring the total length to close to 1000km as early as next year.
In other words, Uzbekistan, a country of 32 million people - more-less equal to Malaysia - with a GDP per capita of paltry $1,700 (vs. Malaysia's $11,500) had a fully functioning high-speed rail line nearly 10 years ago and managed to nearly double its length around the time Najib Razak and Lee Hsien Loong merely signed the agreement to connect Singapore and KL.
After Mahathir's pushback on the deadline for the project, the opening was rescheduled from 2026 to 2031 - which would be 20 (TWENTY) years after an impoverished central Asian country cut the ribbon on a similar 350km link between its two largest cities.
Today we know even that isn't going to happen. Even if the political and economic situation changes, and the project is revived, then perhaps we can expect it in mid-2030s or maybe even in 2040s. I'm going to be thinking about retirement by then.
🔴 Such is the magnitude of failure of post-Najib Malaysian administrations.
Let's be honest - Singapore can live without the HSR. It is a globally acclaimed city-state, that tens of millions of people pass through and visit every year, with one of the highest GDP per head and already world-class infrastructure.
It was the obvious end-point for the railway, of course - but the greatest benefits of it were to be reaped by Malaysia.
The ambitious, developing country in Southeast Asia is suffering abject starvation of quality infrastructure. Its past leaders - especially Dr. Mahathir - wasted decades and hundreds of billions of ringgit dumping them into grandiose construction projects like Putrajaya, Cyberjaya, Sepang Racing Circuit, Petronas Towers or absolutely delusional pursuit of establishing a national car industry.
The Peroduas and Protons born out this ludicrous attempt at fixing personal complexes (it's hard to explain the fixation on a national car in any other, rational way) had to have somewhere to drive. And so, one government after another kept pouring the land over with concrete, building one massive highway after another (sometimes even on top of one another), erasing greenery from the increasingly jammed up, rapidly expanding, polluted cities, which are now hard to live in.
🔴 Malaysia never needed a fake capital in Putrajaya or a fake Silicon Valley in Cyberjaya - it needed railways and not today but 30 years ago. Any delay in investment in them sets the country even further back.
As it is, it is at least proceeding with ECRL (fortunately the new government intends to revert the route back through Gombak, instead of Putrajaya) but it axed the main north-south axis that the HSR provided, connecting not only KL to Singapore but cities like Melaka or JB along the way too.
Economic and environmental benefits would have been immense. Many cars would have been taken off the roads. Inefficient air travel between SG and KL would have been reduced and moved to trains - guaranteeing full capacity. Travelers would be able to do simple day trips between the biggest cities, including across the border, boosting tourism in both Singapore and Malaysia. More people would be able to actually reside out of the cities, in proximity to HSR stations along the way. Land in the vicinity would appreciate in value, spurring greater construction investments in valuable residential and commercial real estate.
And the line itself would be a foundation for a logistical north-south spine, in the future providing public transit as far as Penang or even further into Thailand.
Anybody who has been through Malaysian traffic jams understands how many millions of hours are lost to the economy every single year, by people simply being stuck due to lack of alternative options of commute within and between cities.
If there's a will, there's a way, but not in Malaysia, it seems. I suspect the project was derailed not over lack of funding (after all the new alignment of ECRL is going to cost up to RM20 billion more) it but the unease about the joint Malaysian-Singaporean control over who is actually going to build it - reducing the ability of the Malaysian elites to pump public money into local construction companies.
Again, and quite surprisingly (in retrospect), Najib was the person who actually wanted to get it done and worked with Singapore in a cooperative manner, agreeing to joint collaboration on the ex*****on of the project.
As it is, unfortunately, Malaysians may end up waiting a few more decades in horrific traffic jams before a comparable rail line is built, all due to the pettiness and small-mindedness of the leadership in charge of the country of millions of talented and well-educated people - the best of whom keep migrating out of it, seeking a better life elsewhere.
This is the only sort of "travel" that these myopic decisions are going to accelerate.
