World car free day
RapidKL joins the rest of the world come Saturday to celebrate the World Car Free Day – an international green initiative to get the public, even if it is only for a day, to liberate itself and be free from being a car-dominated society and give the environment a break from the torture of fossil-fuel based vehicles.
On the day, the environment-caring community would give their cars a break and opt for electrically-operated or muscle-powered vehicle. Public transport, especially the light rail transit (LRT) or monorail would be the transport of the day while bicycles would the means of traveling for short distances.
The World Car-Free Day was initiated in 1994 upon a presentation by the EcoPlan team at the International Accessible Cities Conference in Toledo, Spain. The project states that car-free days should generally be held on Thursdays as they demonstrate the effects of doing without cars on a regular working day. This has resulted in cities around the world, even some of the most congested like, Jakarta, adopting the project, either on a once-a-year basis, or with more frequency.
In conjunction with the noble initiative, RapidKL, operator of the LRT, KL Monorail and bus services in the Klang Valley, will send its team, donning the Ride For Green T-shirts, to the designated LRT stations of its Ampang and Kelana Jaya LRT Line as well as KL Monorail Line to congratulate the passengers of the day for opting the system to travel. Their decision is in line with the World Car Free Day’s objective.
At the same time, the team will be distributing RapidKL’s 8th year anniversary flyers to create greater awareness of what the public transportation system has to offer to the masses. The move is expected to boost further RapidKL’s ridership which has been in the uptrend in general in view of the transport convenience that the system provides for commuters in Klang Valley.
Meanwhile, a student of TAR College, Ms Leong Kar Yaen, said the World Car-Free Day is a good initiative to encourage more people to use the public transport system, and RapidKL is making a good call to be part of the celebrations.
“The RapidKL’s LRT, KL Monorail and bus services are bringing a lot of benefits to residents of Klang Valley. Riding the LRT is way much better than driving. We could chat more when we are riding the LRT. When we travel by car, most of the time we listen to the radio way too much. There is lack of communication among the passengers.
“Furthermore, as a passenger of RapidKL’s LRT, KL Monorail or bus services, we get the opportunity to view developments that are taking place in Klang Valley,” said Leong who emerged as a winner of one of the many competitions held by RapidKL in conjunction with its 8th year anniversary.
Another winner of the competition, Madam Er Cheng Moi, also praised the services of RapidKL, saying that traveling within the cities and towns in Klang Valley has been made convenient by the company.
“The bus service of RapidKL brings benefits to us who reside at Kg Muhibbah in Puchong. With such a service, we can easily go to the nearest LRT stations to take the train to places in Klang Valley,” she added.
Among the competitions held in conjunction with the 8th year anniversary celebrations are photography competition, drawing contest, lucky draws, top-up-and-win and quizzes. The main objective of the competition is to get commuters excited over the country’s urban public transport systems. It is hope they would shift from driving into the cities in their cars to riding RapidKL’s LRT, KL Monorail and bus services to commute. This will reduce the number of private vehicles going into the city hence addressing the traffic jam situation in Klang Valley.
RapidKL has always been a supporter of initiatives to protect the environment. Late last May, it launched a Ride For Green campaign in conjunction with the World Environment Day which is celebrated by the international community every June 5.
The campaign carried a theme of Recycle, Reduce and Ride RapidKL. Under it, RapidKL called on Malaysians to join the company to spread the message of championing green initiative by wearing a limited edition T-shirts on the day while boarding RapidKL’s LRTs, monorail and buses.
Prasarana, being in the transport sector, has taken numerous measures to promote initiatives to protect the environment. The company will be introducing a four-car train for its KL Monorail to encourage more people to ride the train to commute. The train itself is utilizing green technology and its track has been designed to lower noise pollution in the city. In addition to this, Prasarana is also increasing the number of parking bays of its selected LRT stations to make it easier for the residents of Klang Valley to commute. With more people riding LRT to move around Klang Valley, the use of fossil fuel will be reduced hence lowering the emission of carbon dioxide in the country.
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