KUALA LUMPUR: Mass Rapid Transit Corp Sdn Bhd (MRT Corp) said construction of the 51km Klang Valley Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Sungai Buloh-Kajang (SBK) line is on track, with overall progress at 58.5% as at Dec 31, 2014.
Newly-appointed MRT Corp chief executive officer Datuk Seri Shahril Mokhtar said progress of underground works stood at 73.13%, while the elevated section is 49.2% completed.
“I am pleased with the progress achieved thus far. As we move our focus towards the systems portion of construction, I will ensure that the good progress continues,” he said yesterday during a media visit to the Cochrane and Tun Razak Exchange stations, the first underground portion that will be completed for the MRT project.
He added that Phase 1 of the project will commence operations by December 2016 from Sungai Buloh to Semantan, while the entire line up to Kajang will be completed by July 2017, as per MRT Corp’s original plan.
On MRT Line 2, Shahril said the company has received conditional approval from the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) in December last year, adding that the line will be going for public display in the second quarter of this year, with the final alignment expected to be approved in August 2015.
“Again, it’s not cast in stone. It is still conditional,” he said, adding that the company may be tweaking its alignment in light of the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR) project, which was recently announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
Shahril said the proposed HSR station will be located in Bandar Malaysia, close to two stations under MRT Line 3, according to SPAD’s public transport master plan.
“As of now, we have not decided when MRT Line 3 is going to start. Therefore, to fulfil the need to connect with the HSR station in Bandar Malaysia and to have a concurrent development for Phase 1 of Bandar Malaysia, which is expected to be completed at end-2021, there’s a need for us to look at a realignment,” he said.
This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on February 12, 2015.