baiano27

It was in the news 2 months ago then went quiet.

Amount is 7RM a day I think hence I calculated $80 a month.

The Singapore increase will naturally see this issue raised again. I don't mind paying $80 and to be fair I don't blame the Malaysian government. Its easy money as everyone will pay it and why should one side charge and not the other. Just a shame its the consumers who lose out.

baiano27

just seen that the figure 50RM per day is being discussed. Thats $400-600 a month depending on whether weekends are included.

That is the kind of figure that should see a lot of people relocating back to Singapore....

geedee

That 7RM a day is at the road toll, isn't it? That's for all cars, including Malay. I think there'll be an extra on top, like the VEP.

.... or sell the S'pore car and buy a Malaysian plate. At the moment it's the traffic jams making people go back to S'pore, I believe.

BB, good article, liked the comments!

baiano27

The 7RM was additional like VEP...

Unfortunately as an SPR I can't drive my Malaysia car into Singapore. I have no choice but to pay up whatever they set it to....

Eus

That means you are paying the normal Singapore vehicle toll fees and not the VEP for foreign vehicles. However you also pay the COE etc. and that is no fun.

I was looking at a cheap car to go in and out of Singapore and looked at both sides of the border, similar cars and even with the VEP at 35 SGD per day, it is still cheaper than a Singapore car !!! Ridiculous.

Only problem for Singapore is they are damaging their economy in the long run but they are just so hell bent on not wanting their PRs and Citizens living cheaper and putting less pressure on their own housing market.

It just doesn't make sense but hey, maybe on day they will wake up, probably after Medini and the likes are really starting to hurt Singapore business, i.e. when it is too late !!!

geedee

The charges being introduced by Malaysia are to bring Woodlands in line with Tuas, it seems (not really sure as reliable info a bit hard to find!). If that's the case I can only see Tuas getting even worse!!

geedee

Looks like the extra traffic's started already. I can't believe it.... twenty past eight on a Tuesday evening. In....cred....ible!

geedee

In the spirit of fair and balanced reporting, and after blaming S'pore 100% for the jams, I am saddened to say today was the biggest mash-up I've ever witnessed at the Malaysia end!

Left home in a taxi at 0700....and hit a mega-jam about 500 metres before the TOLL GATE exiting Johor. I thought at first the tolls had broken, but no, it was a queue all the way to the Malaysian Immigration Checkpoint.

It took forever to get through.

I was dreading the S'pore end (it's usually always worse) but to my complete and utter surprise, we joined as the second car in the queue for our booth!

No idea what happened at Malaysia's end this morning, but it certainly took the heat off the S'poreans!

baiano27

There were 2 reasons for the mess yesterday.

Firstly there were loads more cars than usual (no idea why!) at both 2nd link and the causeway. It took me 2 hours over 2nd link when it is usually 45 mins and my colleague arrived over an hour late as well.

Secondly, and this was infuriating, Malaysia have decided since last week to give 2 of the 4 lanes it usually gives to cars to motobikes which I just don't understand. There were so many booths empty whilst the cars only have 2 lanes (and 6 booths!).

Setting off in 15 minutes, I sincerely hope yesterday was a one off!

geedee

Hi B27, thanks for those observations which make a lot of sense.
About the lanes given to bikes... as a "biker" I do have some insight into this! However, I don't think I should post it on a public forum!
I think you may have had a bad journey today too... my wife's facebook contacts posted pictures and it looked as bad as yesterday.
There's a combination of S'pore wanting to make it hard and Malaysia wanting tit-for tat going on and it makes the commute an absolute nightmare now.
I'm a little concerned that this whole "Nusajaya" plan is going to fall flat on its face!

baiano27

It wasn't as bad as Monday but still a bit of queuing. Took me an hour to reach work instead of 45 mins which actually isn't that bad. Tuesdays and Thursdays I need to be in work by 6:30am at the moment so I suspect its getting worse after I have cleared...

Only a week and a half before school christmas holidays so I'll have 3 weeks of not having to go across. Think January could be interesting....

geedee

An hour's not bad.... what's happening in January??

Bocat

It was exactly at this time last year that it all went crazy. Everyone thought it was due to school holidays (local schools) and the increased volume of traffic for Christmas shopping - but sadly it didn't really improve much after that. I'll never understand why the two sides have to make it so blooming difficult for everyone!

ex reg

Totally agree.

I suggested to the missus that we take a drive over the Causeway to Desaru next week and get some seafood and maybe stay the night. She nearly fell off her chair and scotched the idea at least until January.
The infrastructure is there on both sides, all it needs is an extra 2 maybe 3 officers at the most to sit in existing empty booths and do the needful.

It's bizarre that both Govs allow this to happen when the solution is so obvious and easy.

geedee

I was going to start another thread, but it will fit in here.

We went in to S'pore last Saturday... slow, but not horrific.

Left S'pore at 1430 to come home. Got home (distance about 39Km) at 1930.

5 freaking hours to travel 39 freaking kilometres!

We cleared S'pore at about 1555 and hit the mother of all jams going into Johor at 1600. We barely moved for 3 hours.

Seriously, this Iskandar / S'pore tie up is dead. It isn't going to work while 50% of booths are closed at peak periods. They're either brain dead or doing it intentionally, but Joe Public will not put up with it much longer.

It beggars belief how they can be so dumb. Asia the new world power? I doubt it.