Traffic Woes in KL City

A ray of hope is something that we, city dwellers look forward on the horizon who crawl our way through the notorious Federal Highway jam daily (snail-drive, I name it). Sometimes I can see pedestrians are faster than motorists. Each time I hit the Federal Highway (highway is not an appropriate name for it anymore), I imagine a city centre without traffic jams. Not just during off- peak hours or public holidays but every day, where I don’t need to sit idle staring at the sea of cars, hearing impatient honking and looking at disgruntled drivers with frown all over their forehead. It’s a mere sight each day when we are battling to reach our destination, HOME after a hard day’s work. What sort of life do we have here in city? Now I began to realize why my parents love their small town, Ipoh and look forward to settle down post retirement.
Traffic inch is all over routes in KL and Selangor. Both directions of road are filled with engine fumes and impatient drivers. Let it be, you’re exiting the city or reaching towards city, it makes no DIFFERENCE. And worse still, the traffic congestion is unpredictable! Regardless of public holidays or school holidays makes it even ghastly. Obviously, this is a daily anguish for all of us which there are no end to it, unless the authority does something about it ASAP!
Let us have a quick look into what is the root cause for the never-ending traffic brawl in the city. The focal reason for traffic congestion in the city was due to the substantial increase in the number of single occupancy vehicles coming into the city. It will still be zilch efficiency anywhere in the world even if the PWD authority escalates the number of new routes or roads, or expand roads to keep pace with the rapid increase in passenger cars. Why is this happening? Isn’t the public transportation sufficient to cater the public to commute from work to home and vice versa? One reason the public still chose to use their own vehicles was because the public transportation system was still inadequate and did not fulfill the demands of users especially in accessibility, continuity and being on time. There is no way the current road system can take in more cars; the only solution is for an alternative mode of transport – improvisation of public transportation.

I believe, a comprehensive and integrated plan should be put into place by the Government to solve the erratic traffic woes in the city. Integrated public transportation system should be established and not become a near reality, a distant future or just a pipe-dream. This is a serious matter and should not be looked at being unrealistic. The on-hand public transportation exclusively the LRT/commuter should be innovated to greater heights and channeled to various destination especially offices, factories, hospitals, and shopping malls via underground or amid the skyline. The rail transit will be the most effective mode of transportation for a quick and safer travelling. This included expanding LRT services, improving the quality of commuter trains and increasing the number of buses and their stops.
It comes of no surprise that almost most big cities in the world experience this sort of predicament. But the authority comes up with innovative ways of dealing with this problem. I.e. car pool, limit the cars on the road, improve the services of public transportation with better comfortable trains and reliable LRTs and also a combination of cycle-park and taking the train. In most developed countries, 60% of the people use public transport but in our country, it is about 20%, so we are way below the world average. So this is why we are still struggling with traffic anguish.
There must be nationwide campaign to get all the people including the company’s directors, bosses and political leaders to take the public transport at least once/twice a week. After all this is about leadership by example and walking their talk.
This is not something out of the ordinary, since even in USA, their Vice President Joe Biden commutes by metro.
My greatest doubt is how PWD and government streamlined the physical criteria’s of roads in KL and survey the traffic conditions prior to developing the infrastructure for traffic systems? The elevated roads are constructed for routes that only a handful motorist uses it. Why? The peak-hour traffic congestion on the highway which is one of the city's main arteries should be scrutinized and given a paramount importance for improvisation of roads.

Another immediate suggestion is to come up with a proper management scheme to control the flow of traffic on the highway. The traffic controller can play a major role by making their presence felt and worthy especially during peak hrs all throughout the day (from dawn till dusk) irrespective of the weather conditions. A holistic solution was definitely considered necessary to solve traffic problems in the city for the next two to three decades.
It is time to give it a big boost as we make Kuala Lumpur city to be even better and greater.