Do you agree or disagree with this statement?
Kopi and Property is of the opinion that the government needs to do more if they intend for more people to take public transport.
Let’s learn from Singapore in regard to these two examples – high parking rates (compared to Malaysia) and their Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) charges which helps deter many from driving to the office in central business districts (CBDs).
Else, people will continue to buy cars and drive to work, resulting perpetual in traffic jams.
Back to the statement of there being no parking bays required when a development is located next to or near to an MRT station.
Argument 1: Taking public transport is a personal choice
Many people have ZERO intention to buy a car. The car will be depreciating in value every day anyway.
For these people, they are already firmly plugged into the public transport mindset as they have been using public transport for years.
For this group, what property sales people say is then very accurate.
Argument 2: Many couples have families
Sending young kids to the nursery using public transport is not an ideal situation. Definitely not if it’s by train.
It’s tough ensuring the kids’ safety at every point of the journey. There are so many commuters, the trains are constantly in motion, the kids may be running around – you get the picture.
Plus parents will have to pack four bags – two school bags and two bags to store clothes and other daily essentials as the kids will be sleeping at the nursery and only returning home at 5pm every day.
Argument 3: The ideal future is still extremely far away
Picture this: 90% of Malaysians taking all forms of public transportation every day in the Klang Valley.
Yes, we will have much cleaner air, no traffic jams and everyone will have more money to spend on many other essentials instead of a RM100,000 car, for example.
Okay, now wake up because this will always be a dream unless there is government intervention. And strict intervention may make the people angry, and you know what happens later during general elections.
Conclusion
A future in which everybody takes public transportation is still far off. Thus, cars are still needed and by extension car parks too.
In Hong Kong’s CBD, the car parks themselves are considered an investment.
Some time back, a reader of kopiandproperty.com, commented: ”My family just sold our parking slot for $1.4 million hkd last month (originally bought for $200k back in 2003) and guess what? I just checked the transaction records online and realised a parking slot in our neighbourhood has been sold for $1.6 million recently. Crazy right? I can’t wait for the bubble to burst :P”
Well, a recent check shows car parks there are still very expensive over there.
This article first appeared in kopiandproperty.com
Charles Tan blogs at property investment site kopiandproperty. He dislikes property speculators and disagrees that renting is better than buying. He thinks it’s either property or poverty. He is presently the CEO of an auction house auctioning assets beyond just properties.