We ask the youth of East and Southeast Asia: How would you solve traffic in your home countries?
Welcome to the third iteration of URBANovation, a podcast on innovative ideas for emerging cities in Asia. Transport. It’s probably the most massive challenge faced by Southeast Asian cities.
So massive that we will be covering it in two episodes. In this installment, we are partnering with our sponsor, the Bai Xian Asia Institute, which supports the Asian Future Leader Scholarship Program in leading universities across Asia. We will have a chat with scholars from different Asian countries and ask them, how would you solve traffic in your home countries? This is URBANovation.
Hello and welcome to URBANovation. My name is Joshua and I am one of the co-presenters of this podcast. I am from the Philippines.
I’m based in Singapore. And in this recording session, I am joining the podcast from Bangkok. In this episode, we are going to do something a little different.
Our topic today is traffic. Traffic is an issue that affects most of Asia’s urban centers. On TomTom’s latest traffic index, a whopping 19 cities in Asia are among the world’s 50 most congested cities, and 10 of them are in Southeast Asia alone.
These include Bangkok and Hatyai in Thailand, Manila and Davao in the Philippines, and Jakarta and Bandung in Indonesia, among many others. In Bangkok, it takes an average of 21 minutes and 51 seconds to travel 10 kilometers by car. I did say by car.
In reality, Bangkok’s traffic is of course challenging to navigate, but there are many ways people try to move around the city. One way is by using motorcycles, which are able to weave through congested roads. Some people love them, some don’t, but they are a very important part of urban culture in many Southeast Asian cities.
There is also Bangkok’s expanding train network. And there are innovations like electric tuk-tuks that help people reach their destinations. Now, traffic looks different in different cities, and so do the solutions.
What works in the context of cities like Bangkok or any other city may not always work for other cities. So let’s hear directly from the youth of different cities across Asia. The first part of this episode is in partnership with the Baixian Asia Institute.
The Baixian Asia Institute is a not-for-profit educational organization that runs the Asian Future Leaders Scholarship Program, which awards up to 100 scholarships each year to students from Asia to study abroad at top universities across East Asia. We have with us five Baixian Asia Future Leaders Scholars who will discuss the transport systems in their hometowns. They are from different cities in Asia, and these scholars in particular are based in universities in Hong Kong.
Hi, everyone. My name is Tim. I’m from the Philippines.
I did my master’s in philosophy in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, or HKUST. And yeah, it’s great to be here in Hong Kong. So hi, everybody.
I’m Xiaofei from China. And now I’m a full-time staff member at the Baixian Asia Institute. And I just graduated from the Master of Public Policy Program at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
So this is Simon. And I also come from the same university as Tim. And I’m a second year MPhil student in social science.
And I grew up in China and in the southwest city Chongqing. Hi, everyone. My name is Rui.
I’m also from HKUST. I’m currently a master’s student in business analytics. And originally, I’m from Indonesia, Jakarta.
So nice to meet you all. Hey, everyone. My name is Nargis, and I’m from Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Currently, I’m doing my master’s degree in business analytics and statistics. This is actually my fifth year living in Hong Kong. So nice to meet you all.
Hi, my name is Yanika. I’m from Malaysia. I live in Selangor.
So it’s like really near Kuala Lumpur. I’m studying master’s in public policy. So the issue of transportation is actually a really big interest of mine.
So I’m really happy to be here to talk about it. Thank you. We have a very diverse group of people here.
So let’s just dive right into it. Let’s first do a round of stories. I want to hear what is transport like in your hometown? Simon, what’s Chongqing like? I guess when I grew up in Chongqing, I mean, it’s a mountainous area.
The traffic is terrible. But when I grew up, my family is living in the center of the town. So like everything, the school, the hospital, and also like the business center, everything is within like 10 to 12 minutes, 10 to 20 minutes.
So actually, most of the time, we just go by walk. So I just think I care about it that much. Maybe let’s hear about the Philippines from Tim.
Well, I was born in a city called Bacolod. And remembering when I was young, there wasn’t really much traffic. To go from point A to point B would probably take 10 minutes, 15 minutes by car.
But I recently visited my hometown just last year, last December for Christmas. And I’ve noticed that to go from what used to be 15 to 20 minutes is now like 30 to 40 minutes. So it’s not as bad as Manila, but it seems like we’re getting to a point where it’s becoming a really car-centric city because there’s no trains.
I guess public transportation is limited to cars. Thanks, Tim. Ri, can you share more about Jakarta? Yeah, thanks, Joshua.
So I was born and raised in Jakarta. I grew up basically in the ghetto part of Jakarta as well. So the thing about that, Jakarta has been a city that is almost impossible to walk to anywhere other than your neighborhood, other than anywhere near you.
Jakarta has always been filled with motorcycles and personal cars. Even with public transportation back then, it is hard to get because not everywhere is connected in Jakarta, let alone everywhere near it. The thing is with Jakarta, motorcycle has been the primary transportation for everyone.
Even motorcycles is considered a public transportation because there are people offering their service to take them somewhere. I think Jakarta is mainly not a public transportation hub back then. However, currently, Jakarta has developed a lot more and there are public transportations that are available.
However, it’s subpar compared to anywhere else. Thanks, Ri. Nargis? Hi, everyone again.
I was born and raised in the east part of Kazakhstan. But right now, currently, my parents live in Almaty, Kazakhstan. I would say that the whole public transportation system in different cities differentiates.
Currently, in Almaty, I would say that public transportation is more popular rather than driving cars. From my personal experience that I experienced last summer, I feel like taking a bus would be quite faster rather than taking an Uber to reach somewhere. This is, I think, the most annoying part because usually people spend two or three hours sometimes to reach their destination.
But I would say that in comparison to the past two years, the public transportation, especially the MTR system, developed a lot. It became popular that people back in my home country started using public transportation on a daily basis. Before, it just used to be that every house owned two or three cars.
Right now, people just prefer to go to work using the MTR because it saves you at least 30 minutes to reach. So, this is kind of an interesting trend. But what I want to say, after living five years in Hong Kong, I can definitely tell that Almaty, like Kazakhstan, is behind Hong Kong maybe for 15 or 20 years.
I think it’s not comparable with our MTR system because back in Almaty, it’s just one line, which covers only 15 stations, while in Hong Kong, the MTR system covers the whole city, which does not limit you actually in any direction. So, you can basically travel wherever you want. Thanks, Nargis.
And finally, Yannicka. Hi. Okay.
Malaysia is definitely a car country, I would say. I mean, like, especially right now, when everything is kind of urbanizing, it used to be that Kuala Lumpur, the capital city, is where most of the traffic happens. But now, it’s spreading into the Klang Valley, which is where most of the urban centers are.
But it’s also growing. So now, in my hometown, more buildings and more apartments are coming up. And so, with that comes more highways.
And now, even Google Maps can’t keep up with all the highways happening. So, when you go on a road, and Google Maps tells you to go left, you can’t be sure if you’re on top of it or below it because there are so many bridges. And I think, even now, you see a lot of bridges for walkways.
You mean like the pedestrian overpasses, the ones that are like stairways to heaven that you have to climb up to cross the highway? Is that what you mean? Yeah, kind of like that. Yeah. Even now, you can see a lot of new bridges coming up for pedestrians where they can walk over highways.
And there was one near my home. It spans like, I want to say, five, six highways. You need to walk for so long to reach the MRT station.
That’s like our public transport. It’s called the MRT. But I love public transport.
And I really hope I can get to talk more about it later. Yeah. I love public transport too.
But I also love looking, not walking. I love looking at those bridges. Tim, I think in Manila, there’s the stairway to heaven in the EDSA highway.
The one that goes up and up and up before you can even start to cross. Did you ever get to see that one, Tim? Oh yeah, yeah, Josh. I was able to experience it for a year.
So I was working in the government in Quezon City. So I have to take this thing called the Stairways of Heaven. It’s around two flights up, and then it can be very narrow, and then the steps can be steep.
And yeah, it’s like a mini exercise before going to work and also going home. It’s actually quite popular in Kazakhstan too. To be honest, especially if you go to the first point, like Tung Chung area.
But in Almaty, we have like a Tung Chung area where all bazaars and the big shopping malls are located. And usually they have a huge traffic because everyone, especially during the weekends, trying to get there to get cheaper clothes or cheaper grocery shop. It’s kind of Costco.
And we have this kind of stairs. How do you say that? Stairways of heaven. But it’s not really heaven.
It’s really hell up there. Yeah, and it’s quite popular. It sounds like our audience would actually benefit from seeing the Stairway to Heaven.
So if you’d like to see the photo, go to our website at urbannovation.uc.org. The Urban Innovation website is sponsored by the Bison Asia Institute. We’ve heard about different modes of transport, different ways people try to get around the city. So whether they are motorbikes or they are public transport, and there are often challenges to finding the right mode of transport for people to use when commuting.
For example, even if public transport is there, sometimes it may be difficult to access because of having to walk up those stairways to heaven or maybe it doesn’t cover the whole city. So I wanted to kind of like hear from everyone. We heard from Nargis, but I’m curious from the other places.
Is public transportation good? How can it be better? And why are people using it or why are people not using it? Maybe we can hear from Simon. And I have to say, I thought the transport in Chongqing was quite good when I went there, but I also did not live there. So maybe there’s a difference you can tell me about.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. So like back in Chongqing, so actually we talk about the transportation in Chongqing. I couldn’t help just to compare Chongqing with Hong Kong here.
Because back in Chongqing, we didn’t have something like a subway or we couldn’t take a train until 2012 until I graduated from my primary school. But like I just said before, I still don’t use those long-distance transportation tools. So I guess that doesn’t influence me too much.
Oh, actually Simon, I was interested in Chongqing because I’ve seen a lot in Instagram. There’s like the train system that goes through the building and all the multi-level trains and areas that you can go probably like when you’re on the lower ground and you go up to the 20th floor, but you’re still on the ground floor. Yeah, can you tell me more about that? Have you experienced any of that? Yeah, definitely.
So just like Yannick just mentioned, like in Malaysia, the transportation in Chongqing, it actually looks like it has so many layers of it. Like we have like so many layers of transportation, one above another. And actually in Chongqing, especially for the railway system, it’s not called like subway like in Hong Kong or some places else because it does not run under the ground.
It’s actually run over the ground because it’s such a mountainous area. Lots of people here and we just cannot do that like here we are doing in Hong Kong. Does that 3D city nature of Chongqing make transport easier or harder? I guess for local people, it doesn’t matter that much, but for foreigners, it could be a challenge.
I mean, and sometimes especially for those who do not live in the main city who live like in some rural areas in Chongqing when they just go to the main city, it could be frustrating. And most of the time, the map tools on your phone doesn’t work at all. So it sounds like there’s some issues with wayfinding the way that many maps are two-dimensional and Chongqing has so many layers that for someone who’s new to the city, it’s hard to navigate.
I see. And it could also be a trouble for drivers too. So what do you use to get around? You said you mostly do walking? Yeah, walking.
Most of the time, I guess. What about climbing? I think we talked about stairway to heaven before. I think Chongqing is like the next level because sometimes I see in Instagram, there’s like hundreds and hundreds of staircases in Chongqing.
Have you gone through that? And then when you lived there and grew up there, you take stairs a lot and everything. Yeah. I mean, I also want to talk about the stairs because I mean, I really, I mean, if you compare Chongqing to Hong Kong, one thing I really want to say is about the facility for the disabled people because in Chongqing, yes, we do have so many layers of transportation and also so many stairs.
And it’s actually very uncomfortable and inconvenient for those disabled people. I mean, if you’re on the wheelchair, it’s really hard for you to move. Like, I don’t know, even for like 100 meters in Chongqing, it’s really hard.
But like in Hong Kong, their facilities for the disabled people is much better. Thanks for bringing that up, Simon. Though I had a different experience here in Hong Kong.
For example, I was with a friend and his wife and his kid, their baby two years ago. So when I was bringing them around Hong Kong, we were going to places like Wan Chai, visiting Central, mostly in the Hong Kong Island side. We would sometimes have trouble like going up and down because there weren’t really much escalators or elevators.
Though the MTR does have these, in some spots, they’re not that convenient for people to see where they are. So I would see my friend carrying the stroller, going down the stairs, going up the stairs, and his wife carrying the baby and then putting back the baby on the stroller. So I think Hong Kong isn’t there yet when it comes to like being friendly for people with disabilities.
Okay, in Malaysia, the government really wants to promote public transportation. Like they really want Malaysia to be like a car-free city, like modern, like with buses, trains, and everything. Malaysia has like, I want to say like four or five different types of public transportation, which is basically just the train or railway, but like different, called different things.
The oldest one is the KTM, which is literally like, you can hear it rattle when you take it. And I’m pretty sure every glass pane of that carriage is like shattered. Like, okay, not that it’s broken, but there are literally cracks in it where you can see that it’s so close to shattered.
Yeah, but it still works. Okay, that’s the oldest one. And the problem with it is it’s only like comes every hour and it’s very slow.
So not only is it slow, everyone uses it for going out of the city or like out of state, because the KTM connects across different states. So if you’re working in one state and you want to come to Kuala Lumpur, which is the capital, that’s the only way. The MRT is the newest one.
And it’s basically their new project where they want to connect everything around the Klang Valley. Klang Valley is, it comprises of Kuala Lumpur, the capital, and then Selangor, and then mostly the urbanizing areas, as I’ve said just now. But basically they’re trying to make the MRT like the new countrywide, at least in West Malaysia, because Malaysia is separated into West and East Malaysia.
At least in West Malaysia, they want to make it like a big thing and they want everyone to do it. So you have a monthly pass of like 50 ringgit. Ringgit is our currency.
Monthly pass 50 ringgit. You can go anywhere using the MRT. And I used that a lot when I was working because when I was working, I just used the public transport and it was so good.
I love it so much. I didn’t have to drive because I hate driving because I would have to drive into the city and the city driving is like, as I said KL, like all their roads, it’s just not worth it. Yeah.
So not only is it like 50 ringgit per month, but the government also does this thing where you can park at the MRT and then if you leave your car over there, you get like a discount parking fee. So it comes up to like four ringgit if you leave it like more than 12 hours or something. Yeah.
So it’s like so good. Like they want to promote it. But here’s the problem with the MRT and most public transport is that there’s no like last mile.
I don’t know if you guys have heard this, but the last mile problem. Yeah. It’s the big problem.
That’s the thing is that like you reach your station, but you still have like a few, like the last miles to go. You still need a car. You still need like some kind of transportation.
It’s like something like bicycles. Sure, bicycles like in Mainland. Okay.
So here’s the thing. Like bicycles are not that popular in Malaysia because the roads are not that like good. Like for example, okay, I got off at Sungai Buloh station.
That’s a station. Anyway, it’s like five minutes from my place. Oh my God.
It’s like literally you can see on the map. You can like walk to it if you just cut across. You can’t cut across.
There’s like highways. There’s like roads. There’s a school there that blocked off the access to the station.
So you need to walk like 20 minutes around. You can’t do that because you have to walk on the highway. So it’s like, it’s just not convenient.
20 minutes is a lot. Yeah. And when I got off at like 8pm, like, oh my God, you can’t walk at night on a highway.
Yeah. So that’s a problem with the MRT. Oh, it’s public transport often.
It’s the last mile. Yeah. Do you have electrical scooters? Because in Kazakhstan right now, it’s become so popular using electrical scooters.
So some people, sometimes when they get out of the work, instead of bicycles, they use electrical scooters, which charge you, I think if I don’t mistake, it’s only 10 HKD per minute. Like, so and if, and they’re super fast. So they can, like the maximum you can speed up up to 45 kilometers per hour.
Wow. So literally right now, younger generations, they don’t even use buses or bicycles. They just use electrical scooters.
And the one convenience thing, you can just leave it at any place and just go. For example, you can drop out. There is no particular point that you need to drop it out.
So you can just, you reach your destination and you can leave it there. This is like something e-bikes or electric scooters, they are banned in Hong Kong, right? Yes, they are banned. You see here, there’s this thing called people.
In Southeast Asia, like mainly in Southeast Asia, if you just leave something there, tomorrow it’s going to be gone. Like the idea of using e-bikes and scooters to cut down the greenhouse gas emissions and utilizing public transportation is good and all. But also there’s the issue with the users as well.
Maybe in some parts of Asia, such as mainly in China and Kazakhstan, the people are more user-friendly. They’re more conscious of their stuff, conscious of public transportation. But the people in Southeast Asia, I mean, Yanika or Tim maybe can account.
Some people are not that well-mannered in a way that they’ll just split it apart or just leave it anyway. So the issue with public transportation in Southeast Asia mainly is also the barriers of entry for people, the knowledge instilled in people and the manners. It’s interesting because in Hong Kong, I remember back in like 2020, 2021, they had these public bikes.
Like same, there’s an app and then you scan it and then you’re allowed to use the bike. But after one year, two years, they disappeared. They still have it.
I mean, less, fewer. Fewer, right? But it’s funny because one or two years later, I see one of these bikes, but they no longer have the lock. And someone else is using it and someone else is keeping it and you’d find it in someone’s backyard.
You’d find it somewhere at the foot of a mountain. You’d see one being, someone just threw it away somewhere on the grass. So I think, which is strange for me because you’d think that, oh, if you’re in Hong Kong, it’s a first world kind of city and then people would be able to use these public, would take care of these public tools.
But yeah. I think people are trying to deal with it. I mean, at least in mainland China, you have to scan this QR code on the bike and you have to open it on your phone.
And after that, you have to close it on your phone. So after all, the bike is connected to your phone and all the responsibility here will be clear, whether you steal it or do something with it or just ride it, or just ride it to somewhere, like mountainous area where they cannot find it, they can always find you, right? Same in Kazakhstan. You need to have this app to scan it.
So if this bike will be broken and if you happen while you’re using it, you have to pay for it. Yeah. So that’s why I think people don’t steal it because all information connected to their accounts.
So I think Marie brought up an interesting point about the kind of culture that encourages things like public transportation and shared transportation. And some people understand it as a chicken and egg kind of problem. In some ways, you want to adjust transport systems to the context and the reality of a city, but you also want to encourage behaviors that make these kinds of solutions more possible.
So I wanted to get everyone’s kind of take. What is needed for your town to adopt these kinds of public or shared transport options? Is it things like education? Do you need facilities first? Do you need policies first? I think coming from my experience in Indonesia with dealing with those that have used public transport and those that prefer their own personal vehicles, I think education is the main reason or the main key that still has to be implemented in using public transportation in Indonesia because there’s this thing called conscience. So sometimes people just don’t care or won’t care about what will happen with others or what will happen with the next user, for example.
So definitely education is the main key in implementing public transportation or shared transportation, such as e-bikes or scooters. It is happening currently in Indonesia right now, but not as mainspread and not as much as people would like. Anyone have a similar or different viewpoint? I want to kind of connect with Rhi’s point where he was talking about how there is use of these e-bikes, but it’s not as widespread.
In Malaysia, there is some use as well. In KL, Kuala Lumpur, the capital city, I’m pretty sure they do use this where you can also share bikes. Sometimes I see it, but it’s concentrated around the wealthy areas.
And there’s also this one tiny city. It’s called Sunway City. It’s managed by a company.
The company is called Sunway. And so they manage the city. And so they have free shuttle buses and they have these e-bikes.
You can see it being shared. I don’t know if they control the e-bikes. I think it’s a separate thing, but it’s just a safe area where you can have e-bikes.
And that’s just the culture there. Any add-ons to that? Because I think it’s an interesting topic. I think for my case, looking both into Manila and Bacolod, I think participatory planning would also be good for everyone on board about, oh, this is the situation and then you need to solve it.
It’s hard to just have the government say, oh, we should do this. Oh, this would work for us without having people from civil society groups or that focus on mobility or even the people themselves who live within these communities. In Indonesia, they call it kampungs.
For us, we call it balanggais. And just bringing everyone on board and being able to express their own perspective on things. Because it’s easy for us to say, okay, maybe we could just add a new train station here or we could just flatten this community and turn it into a road or something that’s public-friendly.
But then sometimes the people who live there, they’ve dedicated their lives in that community for so long and they wouldn’t want to leave. So I think we also have to take into consideration those factors. So we talked a lot about public and shared transportation.
That is one part of traffic. The other part of traffic is arguably the majority of traffic and that is private traffic.
So I want to ask everyone, what is your own experience, do you have any interesting experience with private traffic in your hometowns and how is that sort of regulated or handled? So I think from my perspective, because in Jakarta, Indonesia, I love driving. I’m a car person. I’m a motorcycle person.
I love driving both car and motorcycle. And on the other hand, I also love public transportation, especially here in Hong Kong. It’s so convenient.
However, in my experience in driving, the traffic, actually experiencing traffic, it’s really bad. For example, I’ve gone home from going out. It should take me about an hour to go home.
It took me three hours to go home and that’s even going in the highway. So you can imagine the scale of traffic that is happening in Indonesia, even with highways, even with big roads and all that stuff. And the problem, the main problem is because there’s too much motorcycle.
If you guys in Hong Kong are here, imagine the motorcycles they use to deliver food in Kita or Food Panda. Imagine that 10,000 times in a small road in Indonesia. That’s how bad Indonesia’s traffic is.
In Kazakhstan, we have totally opposite experience. We don’t drive motorcycle. You quietly, maybe you’ll see one or two motorcycles during the whole day because even the delivery food mostly on the e-bikes.
I don’t know why. Maybe it’s eco-friendly or it’s faster or it’s safer. But most of the people, I would say 60% of the families in Kazakhstan, they’re driving and they prefer to drive rather than using public transportation.
Because in each family, they have at least three or four kids. So it’s not convenient sometimes for some of the parents to use public transportation to drop them to school or pick up. So that’s why it’s quite popular to see SUVs or minivans.
You will quite rarely see any sport cars in our country because most of them are family cars. But from my personal experience, why right now the public transportation has become popular, especially among females. Right now, taking a taxi is kind of dangerous for girls because we experience the rape situation and it’s pretty high percentage.
Even if you order a cab, like through Uber, there was a situation that a girl was raped by a driver. So that’s why even my mom did not allow me to take a taxi while I’m in my own city. She said, leave house two hours earlier and just take a bus.
In order to reach your destination, rather than taking Uber or we have our own Lyft, it’s called Yandex, like a system. So this is just because the safety caused our residents to use more public transportation, I would say, especially the females. Before, it used to be a shame to take public transportation.
It means that, oh, you’re low class. Like 20 years back, it was considered a shame if you are taking public transportation. They said, oh, she’s like low class, don’t have money to afford to drive a car.
But right now, people started taking a bus and no one is judging you because they understand it’s safety first. Secondly, it’s more convenient, especially during the morning, high traffic with everyone trying to get to the city center, like to their office. I just want to jump in, because I know Xiaolong doesn’t drive, right? Maybe you can share some overall situation of private cars.
Because I think the biggest trend would be the electric cars, not really popular in China. Because the last time I visited Shanghai, it was amazing. Like basically, I would say like 70%, maybe even more, cars that are driving on the road are actually like electric cars.
Like BYD? Yeah, some are BYD and Tesla as well. Is it in China, they have the same like in San Francisco, like without driver, like driverless? Autonomous driving? I’ve never seen it. I’ve seen it.
I’ve seen that in Shenzhen, actually. You know, across the border. Like way more, like in San Francisco, it’s way more.
They started testing it out. That’s cool. Especially, actually I think you can get a kind of like an Uber.
I’m too worried about it. Robotics. It would like drive at a very slow, like slow speed.
In Shanghai, especially, it was quite popular, like scooters. It looks so cute. Mom with the daughter behind, she’s driving a pink scooter.
Like two people is not allowed. Yeah, but I’ve seen like mom on the pink scooter with the daughter behind. I’m like, damn, it’s so cool.
Are there any interesting solutions that people in your hometown are trying out? Actually, one thing that I know, I mean, not from Chongqing, but from a city near Shanghai, that would be Hangzhou, actually they have this thing that’s like a green wave. Actually, it means that the traffic lights, basically it’s for private cars. So basically, from some point, at least as long as you drive at a certain speed, and the traffic will always be green for you.
So you just drive along without any red lights. So it’s called like green wave for cars. And I really think it’s a very good design.
But actually, it can only work for those suburban areas because they are not that populous, the cars are not that much so that you can use this design. So from my side, and Indonesia is definitely a lot of development in public transportation, I’d say the main one right now is the application, like application service for motorcycle taxi. So instead of using car as a taxi, people can use motorcycle as a taxi.
It’s called Ojek. So basically, it’s a ride-hailing service. You just grab someone from the app and then say that I want to go to this place and they’ll match you with a driver.
And then the other one for infrastructure wise, Indonesia and Jakarta mainly has developed a lot of infrastructure. So one is called the MRT. MRT is one of the subway system that is developed near the CBD area or area rich with offices.
There’s also the light rail train. So LRT is an area which connects you to the industrial district of Jakarta, just outside of Jakarta. And lastly, there’s a bullet train, actually, a bullet train connecting to two cities.
Those are the cities you’ve mentioned in the beginning, Jakarta and Bandung. So that specific bullet train is built by and sponsored by China as well as one of the Belt and Road Initiative. OK, this is unique, but is it a solution? So transit oriented developments are becoming really big in Malaysia.
That’s basically when your station is walkable, quote unquote, to your development, like your house or your residence. And that’s like such a big thing right now that every developer wants it. So what they do, because I mean, there’s no way to walk to the station.
Anyway, what they do is they just build really long bridges that connect their building to the station. It doesn’t matter how long the bridge is, it’s just that you can technically call it walkable. So that’s a unique way, I guess, to solve the problem.
I know transit oriented developments are a big thing. I think Hong Kong is one of the pioneers of them, actually, because the MTR corporation develops and owns a lot of the real estate above MTR stations. But because it’s like very well integrated, it’s quite different compared to building a walkway hundreds of meters away.
So, yeah, certainly unique. So I’m not sure if this counts, but on Sundays, like some cities in Metro Manila, they have a car-free, they call it car-free Sundays. Also in Indonesia.
Yeah, so yeah, it’s basically what it is. From a specific time, let’s say 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., cars are not allowed to pass certain roads. And then what happens is a lot of people, and I’ve done this, I’ve joined one of these in Makati specifically, along Ayala Avenue.
Yeah, on Sundays, I would go out for a run with my friends and then there’d be so many people. You’ll see runners, you’ll see bikers. You’ll see people bringing their kids, their dogs.
So I think it’s a good, I guess, testing ground to see like what would happen if you remove the roads and then you just let people be people, like let them walk around and be free. And like if there were no cars, like how would it be like? Yeah, I think pilot testing is a really interesting way to approach questions, especially about culture. Like what would it be like if the systems and facilities were different? How would people react? How can we make things, how can we make behaviors better? So let’s bring this discussion to a full circle.
I’m going to do one more round with everyone. This is our last question. If you could design the perfect transport system for your city, what would it look like? What’s the most important thing you would change? OK, I would definitely put more buses.
Like it would solve the last mile problem where your bus would go to your neighborhood and then you wouldn’t have to really, you wouldn’t have to drive or you wouldn’t have to park. You just take public transportation and then use the buses. And the bus is so important to be on time.
OK, I think this is the most like annoying things that, OK, we all have buses, but are they on time? You know what I mean? Like they’re never on schedule or like if they are, they’re never enough. So I think my perfect city would run mostly on like buses and then it would be, it would be free. Oh, my God, this is so crazy.
But it will be like free public transportation, not just the buses, but also the trains because it’s like I’m paying taxes. It should be free or like cheap. Yeah, because it used to be the monthly pass of 50 ringgit, it used to be 10 ringgit, now it’s 50.
It’s a big jump. OK, that’s all I know. I also agree with you.
Yeah, like we pay a lot of tax in the Philippines. I think we’re one of the highest, right, Joshua, in the in Southeast Asia or even even in Asia, Asia Pacific, we’re one of the highest. So I like to see where my tax, my taxes to go in a lot of transportation.
Like for me, my perfect transportation system in Metro Manila or even in the Philippines is just having loads of trains, I guess, multiple train stations, of course. I think the best way to which the Philippines should copy or how I see it is like copying the Hong Kong model, you know, because I really enjoy taking public transportation here in Hong Kong because the buses, the trains, like everything is just in sync. So like to get to point A to point B here in Hong Kong, I don’t think about like, oh, someone’s going to mug me or someone’s going to hurt me.
But it’s more of like, oh, I think about work now because I’m not that stressed with my own, you know, personal safety. So like for me, the transportation, the ideal transportation, it should be as accessible and available for everyone as possible. I mean, just just as previous, I talk about the stairs in Chongqing make it really hard for those people, for those disabled people to leave.
And another thing is also about taking the bus. So here in Hong Kong, actually, when they have people on the wheelchairs and you take the bus, the bus driver, he will like get off the bus and build this little bridge between the bus and the sidewalk and he will just help put the people and his wheelchair onto the bus. And actually, we don’t have that thing in Chongqing.
And in Chongqing, I’ve never seen any people with wheelchairs on the bus. And I think definitely we should do something like that. Regarding the Kazakhstan, I would say it would be so cool to have express buses, because usually right now the buses, they cover at least 20 stops.
So if you if there will be express bus like to your direction, just only cover five stops instead of doing loops, big loops around the city, you can directly use the shortcut ways a pathway and reach to your destination within 20 minutes. Like basically the time that you will spend on the taxi. It will be super cool for me personally.
I think that our residents wouldn’t mind to pay a little bit extra, but save the time because it will be more useful. And of course, the MTR, how I mentioned before, because right now it’s only one line. I wish that it will have at least five or six lines in the different direction.
Right now, it’s only have 15 stations in total, if I don’t mistake. And it’s just in one direction, downtown and the city. But if it go to the like in the multiple direction and suburb areas, it will be even cool, I think.
Maybe for me, the perfect transportation, public transportation is a mix of Hong Kong, Japan, and probably like Chongqing, because I think Hong Kong is very good, where the MTR is the only company that handles the train system and the subway system. And then there’s Japan, Japan that covers almost everything and everywhere. If you see in cities like Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, you see the trains covers every part of their region.
However, it’s owned by multiple companies. So if you can combine that with Hong Kong and then the level of intricacy and the complexity of the train system in Chongqing, you can make a solid public transportation system. Thanks so much to our Asian future leaders scholars for sharing their thoughts, concerns and aspirations.
It was interesting and incredibly enriching to hear their perspectives. We hope you enjoy this new format where we talk directly with youth from across Asia. At Urbannovation, we deeply value this diversity of experiences and opinions.
It shows that our cities face unique challenges, but it also helps us realize that we have much in common and we can give each other fresh insights on familiar issues. We can work together to understand these challenges and build better urban futures. That’s it for now, but the conversation isn’t over.
In our next episode, my co-host Thao will be sitting down with an expert on urban mobility in Vietnam and the broader Southeast Asian region. We will build on today’s discussions, diving deeper into the forces shaping movement, mobility and urban connectivity and making better sense of the issues at hand. Be sure to watch out for the continuation.
There is so much more to explore. Again, I am Joshua Vargas and you have been listening to Urbannovation. Urbannovation is hosted by the Young Urbanists of Southeast Asia or UC.
To learn more about us, please visit our website, uc.org. Urbannovation is made possible with the support of the Shenzhen Asia Institute’s 2024 Project Award.
This episode is produced in partnership with the Bai Xian Asia Institute.
The Bai Xian Asia Institute is a not-for-profit educational organization that runs the Asian Future Leaders Scholarship Program (AFLSP), which awards up to 100 scholarships each year to students from Asia to study abroad at top universities across East Asia.
The participants in this episode are Bai Xian Scholars studying at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).
The views and opinions expressed in this episode, including those of the guest speakers, do not represent the official position of Bai Xian Asia Institute.
Participants:
Jia Yi Liew (Yanika), Malaysia
Muhammad Fakhri Pratama (Ree), Indonesia
Timothy Joseph Henares (Tim), Philippines
Simon Deng (Simon), China
Nargiz Seisek (Nargiz), Kazakhstan
Host: Joshua Vargas
Production (Bangkok): Joshua Vargas
Production (Hong Kong): Xiaofei Yu (Bai Xian Asia Institute), Tim Henares
Post-production: John Warren Tamor
Communications: Kanesia Tahira, Nguyen Mau Duc Binh (YUSEA Communications)
Music: Joshua Vargas
Image credits: Joshua Vargas
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