A high high price to pay for the wrong long bridge...

The Penang second bridge -- at what cost?

As a Penangite plying Butterworth and Penang island several times a week, I do get caught in the jams on the bridge, and the roads leading to and from it.

So, the news of the Federal Government choosing to present Penangites with a second bridge was most welcomed. Perhaps, this can ease the traffic congestion?

But hang on there for just a minute...the government is using RMm4.3 billion tax payer money or rather borrowed money which our children will eventually be forced to pay for, to build a bridge which is abut three times longer than the present bridge.

Question: Do I take the long, long bridge or do I take the short bridge?

Question: Perhaps, it will be more convenient for people living towards the southern parts to use the second bridge. I wonder how many working class people needing to cross the seas daily can actually afford the toll and the petrol?

Question: If a bridge is three times longer and the cost is RM4.3 billion, my guess is that the toll is likely to be in the region of RM20s and up. Do you honestly believe that by 2011, it can be in the region of RM9 as was mentioned?

Question: Now, if the second bridge ends up being unpopular and underutilised, the likely scenario will be the toll of the first bridge will have to be adjusted.

Can you see your current RM7 toll making a quantum leap to match or even higher then the long long bridge? Penangites will be forced and bled to pay for the bridge for many generations to come.

Question: I love Penang's fresh seafood -- so do all my tourist friends. Coastal development in the key fishing villages of Batu Maung and Batu Kawan will for sure wipe out fish stocks in these areas plus those in the vicinity. Yours and mine daily protein source is going, going gone... you can forget about our children of course -- seafood we enjoy now, will be a thing of the past.

Our children will have to eat hormone fed cultured fish that will bring on obesity and puberty as early as toddler age. A high, high price to pay for the wrong long bridge don't you think?

I like the idea of building more ferry terminals with ferry fleets plying the various routes -- that way, we can disperse the traffic, we can even have the option of choosing the shortest and most efficient route to our destinations. And, why not?

Are we Penangites so stupid and careless as to come this far and yet sit back and allow such atrocities to be forced upon us?