PENANG: Changing the mode of transportation rather than building more bridges and roads is the answer to traffic woes in the state.

Chief minister Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon said people must learn to give up their attachment to their cars before public transportation could succeed in reducing jams.

“Even with the Light Rapid Transit (LRT) in Kuala Lumpur, only 25% of the people are using public transport. Ideally, it should be 60% to 70% ,” he said during a talk to Rotarians here on the ‘Role of People in the Socio-Economic Development for the Community’.

Unless people changed their habits, he said the public transportation system would not work, citing an experiment he conducted among civil servants.

“People in two areas pro-vided with buses that brought them directly to their work place in Komtar still preferred using their cars for various reasons, such as running other errands,” he said.

He said the number of car owners in Malaysia dou-bled every six years and in Penang, only 10% of the popu-lation used public transportation.

“No public transportation in the world has succeeded without government subsidy, except in Hong Kong,” he added, suggesting that the RM16bil federal petrol subsidy be instead pumped into improving public transportation.

He said the appeal by deve-lopers of low and low-medium-cost housing to provide one car park lot to four housing units, rather than to each unit, could not be fulfilled as almost every household had cars.