A New Traffic Dispersal Plan launched in KL on Friday, 15 May will focus on Brickfieds, Pudu areas.
For more information please see:
- New plan to tackle Brickfields traffic woes
- LAUNCHED: RM194 million traffic plan to beat KL traffic jams
TRANSIT Says:
Ramps, underpasses, elevated interchanges, and one-way streets?
This is going to help us turn KL into a livable city?
TRANSIT is shocked by these announcements from the Federal Territories Ministry regarding their “Traffic Dispersal Masterplan” for Kuala Lumpur, which will focus on the Brickfields and Pudu areas of KL.
FT Minister Datuk Raja Nong Chik Raja Zainal Abidin said the two projects were being carried out in accordance with the Prime Minister’s wish to provide a better living for KL citizens and in line with his concept that the “people come first.”
People come first???????? Not in KL, that’s for sure. Here the car comes first, end of story.
Instead of building up the quality of life in the city, it seems that the government is focused on tearing down the quality of life – with more construction, more traffic, more noise, more pollution and more hassles.
Why is any of this necessary? Because of traffic congestion in KL? Because of bad public transport? Or maybe it is because of this unrealistic idea that everyone from the suburban areas can and should be able to drive into the centre of KL – all at the same time – and not face any congestion.
These plans are simply unbelievable – not to mention unrealistic. The action of the government in designing these plans and launching them without real, effective public consultation is just a total shame.
TRANSIT notes that they have made a tiny concession to public transit though – they will have 1 lane of Jalan Tun Sambanthan as a bus lane. How effective will that be, we wonder – given that drivers think they can park anywhere they like on Jalan Tun Sambanthan and enforcement is nonexistent?
KL will not be an enjoyable, comfortable or livable city if these developments go through. It will not be a place where people come first.
But then, maybe it never was…..
Transit Malaysia 
8 replies on “Commentary: New Traffic Dispersal Plan”
[…] Comments from TRANSIT can be found here. […]
Brickfields & Pudu is 2 important hub that our public transport is centered. To focus on the public transport (bus), we need to improve the hub first. That is what they are trying to do. There is no point of taking a bus if the bus need 30 minutes to go through Jalan Tun Sambanthan. BTW they are forgetting Mid Valley City. KL Sentral and Mid Valley City has the most public transport users. It is time they upgrade Mid Valley City bus stop. That bus stop is the choking point that leads to the whole traffic jam in Jalan Tun Sambanthan. It is great that they are starting to upgrade all the route that bus took.
It is not a bad idea to upgrade Jalan Pudu which was designed to meet the traffic of decades ago. Even Jalan Loke Yew (an alternate to Jalan Pudu) has already been upgraded to 4 lane road recently.
Currently there are only 3 lane (although almost all the time only maximum of 2 lane are accessible) on each side of the road while the registered car in KL had increase tremendously over years. Not to mentioned out of the 3 lane one of them are suppose to be a bus/taxi lane.
I notice other factor which contributing to the traffic congestion along Jalan Pudu including:
1. Few crossroad traffic lights (4 direction junction) within short distance (500m) of each other along this road often cause bottleneck congestion to the 3 lane flow.
2. No proper bus stop at some of the stop. Example bus normally stop on the road to pick-up and drop passenger at Pasar Pudu stop.
3. Some buses often stops and wait for passenger along the road causing obstruction to the traffic.
4. Cars found parked along the stretches from Pudu Jail until the traffic light to Jalan Cheras most of the time. These driver treat the bus/taxi lane as their car park space which forces the buses to use the normal car lane.
People always argue that why government always focus on Cars instead of public transport (bus). Well I used to be a happy public transport guy, relying on bus & LRT. After a few cases of being pick pocket in the bus and being rob walking to the bus stop, I just gave up. There is more work to be done than just talk and plan. For public transport to work, we need to get into the details. Look at the small details first.
Hi Edwin
Thanks for that comment. Please note that TRANSIT has given a great deal of feedback to RapidKL about the security and safety issue.
PDRM is giving RapidKL authority to introduce more Polis Bantuan (Auxiliary Police) service in the LRT and on buses – they would be authorized to make arrests and investigate crimes that take place on LRT or buses.
TRANSIT has also made it clear to RapidKL that we want the following information posted to the inside of all buses in a clear and prominent place:
Rakan Cop #32728
999 Emergency Number
RapidKL SMS #
Hopefully, this information combined with more visible, uniformed and non-uniformed polis bantuan will help to curb crimes on public transport.
Regards,
Moaz Yusuf Ahmad
on behalf of TRANSIT
Hi Moaz,
I am trying to obtained information on the annual petrol and diesel consumption in Malaysia in particular the Klang Valley. I think the public should be made aware of the ammount of fossil fuel we consume which translates to increasing carbon pollution. By educating the public, we might be able to attract them to switch to public transportation.
Hope you can help out.
Thanks
Hi Leonard
I will see if my contact at the Ministry of Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism (formerly the Ministry of Domestic Trade & Consumer Affairs) has the information that you are looking for.
In the meantime, weblinks & resources can be found at:
Ministry of Domestic Trade, Cooperatives & Consumerism (English) or Kementerian Perdagangan Dalam Negari, Koperasi dan Kepengunaan (B.Malaysia)
[…] see slides showing the proposal here. We have covered this topic at 2 posts, in Updates #29 and a commentary when the proposal was made. As always we need your […]