For many new expats, the pressing issue of transportation and how to get around a new city is a major one. However, there is no reason to fret because KL offers a variety of easy-to-use, and affordable transportation. Most are fairly easily accessed from different spots around town, and some are quite reliable.
1) Light Rail Transit (LRT)
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The LRT system in Malaysia consists of well-organised railway systems that connect you to key parts of the city. The different lines are assigned to a specific sector so in order to take the LRT, you have to do a little research on the central lines to see which one will drop you off as nearby to your desired location as possible. There are two separate lines that run through the city – Putra LRT and Star LRT. Putra connects the Northeastern Putra terminal to Kelana Jaya in the Western part of KL. Star, on the other hand, connects from the south to Sri Petaling as well as to the east in Ampang. Services on weekdays are open from 6:00 am to midnight, and on the weekends from 7:00 am to 11:00 pm. Tickets are easy to purchase from ticket machines in any station, and the trains are clean, well-lit and efficient.
2) Monorail
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Another highly efficient and proficient mode of transportation around Kuala Lumpur is the monorail. In the city there is one monorail line that connects 11 major spots scattered around town including KL Sentral and the popular Bukit Bintang shopping area. It is considerably fast and will drop travellers close to favorite spots on the train line. However, the only down side is a monorail line can only be found in the city itself, and not in the surrounding suburbs. Nevertheless, the monorail effectively connects Northeast and Southeast Kuala Lumpur, and tickets can be bought at respective stations.
3) Taxi
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Another easy way to get around town is to use a taxi service. Although perhaps the easiest way to get around, people take a risk when taking these because of the unexpected traffic that strikes at random times of the day. There are three types of taxis in KL: the Kuala Lumpur taxi, the Kuala Lumpur Sunlight taxi, and the Kuala Lumpur Blue cab. Both the KL and KL Sunlight services are equally cheaper than the Blue Cab; however the Blue cab has more spacious commodities and more strict guidelines, so they will never hassle the fare. Most KL taxis start their fare at RM3, while blue cabs will start at RM6. However, on weekends and after midnight most taxis will offer a fixed price to take you anywhere, or charge you a midnight fare if they use the meter. Although taxis have their downside, the advantage is that there has been a recent increase in taxi services mobile apps, making it easy to hail a cab at any time of the day.
4) Bus
There are numerous bus operators that offer a range of local buses around Kuala Lumpur. Some of these operators include the national RapidKL, and the privately owned Metrobus and Triton. They are an extremely cheap alternative for people with smaller transportation budgets, but there are fairly unreliable, sometimes not even showing up at all, let alone on time! If you don’t mind the slight bumps, the bus services offer connections to many parts of the city and its surrounding suburbs.
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