Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Traffic Congestion - Open Letter to KL Mayor

Dear Mr.Mayor,

As you are aware of the current horrendous condition of KL traffic especially during peak hours (it is normal to take about 60 minutes just to travel 10 km within KL to go home after work!!!), and it is getting worse by days lately.

We also understand that this requires a long term solution to resolve for good. Building more roads or more widening would be nice but this takes time, money and also causing more traffic congestion during construction.

It is an irony that most often than not, by the time the construction completed, the traffic volume has changed so much so that new road widening probably required as the project keeps dragging on with extension after extension of time without getting the contractor to pay penalty as preventive measure/deterrent.

The good news is there are still some rooms for us to improve on the current conditions at least for now without spending a King's ransom with instant results but need discipline from all parties concerned:

1). Ensure effective enforcement for no double or even treble parking especially along busy streets/road e.g. Jalan Binjai KL between 6pm to 8pm

2). Stop extending the deadlines for all road improvements works e.g. Jalan Cheras near Phoenix Plaza & 3rd mile Cheras roundabout near Velodrome - projects could have been completed long time ago and the obviously there is no urgency shown currently i.e. no night works and no works during weekend or public holidays? Can you image those Cheras folks have to go thru that crawl daily unnecessarily?

3). Effective programming of traffic lights timing for variation during weekday and weekends, morning and night (peak and non-peak). The timing programming for traffic lights at critical junctions could be easily refined and conducted every quarterly to make traffic control more effective during different time of the day or during weekday and weekends.

4). Do not issue permits for construction during peak hours (morning and evening peak) e.g. construction in front of US Embassy. No works allowed during those peak periods.

5). Enforcement on off-the-road policy during peak hours for heavy vehicles such as tractors, bulldozers, trucks, and big lorries as they are holding back traffic (before 7 am and after 7 pm during weekdays)

6). Implement new rules with effective enforcement for motorcycles to use only leftest lane instead of encouraging zig-zag riding behaviour which might also cause serious accident and massive traffic jams

7). Do not issue permits for (or ban) all road closure within city centre for any non-national or State typed events especially for private enterprises

8). Enforcement of illegal parking by buses and coaches along main streets and create special parking area for them after their normal operating hours (stadium parking area say after 10pm or their events) e.g. Illegal parking by outstation coaches along Jalan Davidson

These suggestion might require helps from other government agencies (Police, Transport & Works ministries, CLVB/Licensing boards ...etc) to implement but please do take the lead as we KLites are going thru hells daily (please check out Jalan Tun Razak after office hours!). It would help much more if you could take a ride on DBKL helicopter during peak hours to reconfirm the sources of the problems and to identify the bottlenecks. This would give you an immediate bird's eye view of the whole traffic condition during peak hours.

Mr. Mayor, please do something fast and something effective to resolve our daily agony and traffic chaos!

Thank you!

No comments: