PETALING JAYA - Mass Rapid Transit Corporation Sdn Bhd has finalised names for the 31 MRT stations located on the Sungai Buloh-Kajang line, also known as Line 1.
"The name changes are to better reflect the locality of the station," MRT Corp CEO Datuk Wira Azhar Abdul Hamid said in a press briefing here yesterday.
Citing the Titiwangsa monorail station built more than a decade ago as an example, Azhar said it was actually in the vicinity of the Pekeliling flats and bus stand, rather than Titiwangsa per se.
"We want to avoid this situation from recurring. A commuter should know where he is when he arrives at any MRT station, and this is why we have tweaked the provisional station names," Azhar said, adding that the Prime Minister had personally approved the final list.
"He made one or two changes after we presented our proposal to him," said Azhar, who was probably holding his final press conference as MRT Corp CEO as he will be stepping down on Dec 21.
A MRT Corp official confirmed the new CEO would be announced by early next January.
Azhar also defended MRT Corp's decision not to hold a public contest to name the stations, saying that all would like to see their own choices picked, making a satisfactory conclusion impossible.
Major changes include naming the Kampung Baru Sungai Buloh station (next to the Sungai Buloh station) as Kampung Selamat.
Kwasa Land, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Employees Provident Fund, is set to gain further prominence as the Kota Damansara and Taman Industri Sungai Buloh stations will be named Kwasa Damansara and Kwasa Sentral respectively.
The KL Sentral station will be named Muzium Negara, as the footprint of the station is actually at the door of the National Museum, while the Tun Razak Exchange will be the final name for the interchange station formerly known as Pasar Rakyat.
Plaza Phoenix will be called Taman Connaught, which was also announced as a future interchange station between Line 1 and the proposed Line 2.
"We decided to drop the name Plaza Phoenix as there is no guarantee that the building would not be sold and renamed by the new owner.
"We took all these factors into consideration in coming up with this final list," said Azhar.