Penang Sentral

Overall impressions

Oh dear, poor, poor Penang Sentral.  Where to start.

The design of this 'interchange' is shocking.   Leaving aside the hideous architecture, how does it function as an interchange?

Penang Sentral

The function of an interchange is to seamlessly and smoothly bring together different modes of transport at one nexus.  This should encompass as many modes as relevant and practical.

Butterworth is an obvious place, having a ferry port and a railway station already converging at the same point.  Bring together a bus terminal, a bicycle hub, and a vehicular drop off point, and the idea makes perfect sense. 

Unfortunately, the planners seemed to lose sight of this and decided to build a giant multistorey car park instead, adding on some awkward bus stops and a load of bizarre ramps.   (My advice to anyone planning urban transport in Malaysia: keep it on the ground.  Design out the need for ramps.  If you need lots of ramps, you are doing it wrong.)

Take the bicycle connection between the railway station and the ferry, for example.

In 2021, all but one of the big classic ferries were retired, now replaced by a small boat for foot passengers.  Bicycles and motorcycles are left with a modest 1 per hour.  OK, fine.  We can wait for the ferry.  Very cheap too. 

However, getting onto the ferry or to the railway station is a different story.   Up the ramp, round and round, down, through the toll booth, wait in the queue. 

Out of the port, through the barriers, up the spiral ramp, down another ramp, contra-flow along the main road (no decent pavement), into the station car park area, and then finally reaching the station. 

Time and time again Malaysia takes the long wiggly route to somewhere that is so near in a straight line.

The figure below shows a route you could take between the KTM station and ferry terminal, if you use contraflow. It's about 1.2km. Seriously. (If you don't use contraflow (i.e. cycling into traffic), it's way longer.)

Route between ferry terminal and KTM station for those using bicycle, scooter etc.  This could be solved easily by opening up a route near the toll booths directly into the railway station. 

Connections to the town 

A key issue with transit stations in Malaysia is their connections to the surrounding area - how accessible they are to local communities.  Penang Sentral is no different - in fact it is particularly poor.  The image below shows that there are significant residential and industrial areas within a 2km radius (25 minutes' walk or less, 10 minutes cycling/ scooting, or less).  If given convenient pathways to get to Penang Sentral, no doubt many would consider using the hub to catch their regional bus, ferry to Georgetown, local train, or perhaps long distance train.

Population areas within 2km of Penang Sentral.  

• The residential area to the south east, across the Prai river, is disconnected as there is no bridge.  (The Prai River Bridge is a major highway bridge - no entry for pedestrians.) 

• Residential/ kampung area directly to the east: good luck finding a decent cycle route, footpath or safe crossing points to get into Penang Sentral from here.

• Butterworth town to the north - you could try walking down Highway 1, which has a footbridge and some zig-zag pathways (not much shade).  It will probably take you a lot longer than it should.  Once you get to Penang Sentral, how do you actually get in?

A typical footpath on the way to the Butterworth railway station. 

It's a similar story trying to get directly into the railway station from the local areas.  Terrible paths, carparks in the way, entry roads jammed with traffic, major highway blocking access. 

During construction 

Like most construction projects in Malaysia, access during construction was relegated to the lowest priority. During the construction of Penang Sentral, it was not permitted to walk from the railway station to the ferry terminal (about 240m, or 3-4 minutes' walk). Pedestrians had to take a bus around the construction site, which inevitably took much longer. Perhaps not so bothersome to Malaysians, but it left plenty of foreign tourists disgruntled and confused.  Construction projects (especially ones near transport hubs) need to be planned to maintain adequate access throughout construction for active travel modes.  This is not difficult to do, and forms part of the standard practice for projects in other countries not so far away from Malaysia.  It does, however, need a change in mindset, together with enforcement from planning authorities and major clients.