ANATOMY OF A TRAFFIC DISASTER
by Z. Ibrahim

The Federal Highway, first envisioned in 1965 following separation of Singapore from Malaysia, became the main artery to serve the entire Klang Valley conurbation when Malaysia decided to make Port Klang its premier port then.

Opened in 1967, the Highway itself has undergone multiple metamorphoses to cater for the ever increasing population and industries on either side of the highway.

There was a period in the 80s’ when traffic jams to KL used to start at the Berkeley Gardens and a significant portion of Klang residents who worked in KL had to be on the road by 5am. The original 4-lane highway soon outlived its purpose despite the building of multiple interchanges in Petaling Jaya.

In 1992 Plus Expressway Berhad upgraded the entire highway to a 6-lane highway with toll plazas at Batu Tiga and Sungai Rasa. The highway handles such great volumes of traffic at any time of the day that jams can be quite difficult to predict as even minor mishaps have known to cause traffic to back-up on either side of the highway for miles.

To overcome these jams new expressways were built to not only relieve the burden on the Federal Highway but to ensure that cargo meant for the ports reached them on time.

The New Klang Valley Expressway (NKVE) stretching from Bukit Raja near Klang town to Jalan Duta in Kuala Lumpur was completed and opened to traffic in 1990. The NKVE was further complemented when the 17.5km Shapadu Highway or the North Klang Straits Bypass Highway (NNKSB) linking North Port to Bukit Raja was opened.

The Shah Alam Expressway (KESAS) connects West Port to Sri Petaling and construction began in 1995 and Phase 1 (Seafield-Sri Petaling) was completed in 1997 and Phase 2 (Seafield-Pandamaran) in 1998. Incredibly enough the NKVE and KESAS highways have no direct interchanges to the Federal Highway and despite the addition of the New Pantai Expressway, residents in Klang especially South Klang cannot avoid the Federal Highway to reach their homes after work and this has now become an unbelievable daily nightmare.

At 5pm, after you pass the UITM campus the dreadful jams begin at the Sungai Rasa Toll complex. The six-lane highway narrows down to the original 4-lane Federal Highway of yesteryears at Taman Berkeley. The traffic from the upgraded Jambatan Kota can back-up for five kilometers or more as traffic crawls at this point.

You would have thought common sense would prevail and either this stretch would have been upgraded or development on either side curtailed till the highway can cope with traffic … but this is Klang where as the Zakaria Mat Deros affair has shown
… ..anything goes.

The Berkeley section of the “highway” is now choked with not only incoming traffic from KL but also from hundreds of motorists and customers who attend functions and gatherings at the Hokkien Association Building and two Chinese seafood restaurants on either side of the highway which have been miraculously given licenses to operate.

In addition three completed condominium complexes, the Regency, Dynasty and Pelangi condominiums all exit at this section and worse still the “highway” now has to contend with the new but still not completely open giant Centro office complex. Shophouses and residential homes are being built at the old Chinese Maternity Hospital site over and above the already existing Government Clinic Complex – all still within this stretch. If you think this is incompetent town planning there is unfortunately more… .

New Threat – Prima Klang Avenue Office Complex

As you crawl past the upgraded Jambatan Kota and pass the MPK building on your right and the Land Office Complex on your left, the “highway” suddenly takes an acute turn. On your left at this turn what used to be Bukit Kota has now been slashed to make way for Klang’s newest office complex — Prima Klang Avenue.

This complex spanning more then 4 acres and “perched on the highest point of Klang” with “four-storeys of shops and six-storeys of offices” apparently offers “an exciting mix of shops comprising food and beverage stores, entertainment outlets, fitness centre, banks and an entire level dedicated to automotive showrooms. Wide frontage and spacious corridors create a pleasant environment for leisure and relaxation.

All these come together to make Prima Klang Avenue an innovative one-stop hub, complemented by a scenic landscape with relaxing and majestic water features” … or so says the developer in his brochures.

The complex of course offers ” easy access via Jalan Jambatan Kota and Jalan Kota, the center of the business areas, putting it nearby the Klang Municipal Council, Klang District Office, banking institutions and PUAS, as well as a walk away from the upcoming new government administration offices.”

No doubt this will add up “to a steady traffic flow of some 400,000 people a day in this vibrant business area.” !! Scheduled for completion in mid-2008, Prima Klang Avenue promises to be the pulse of the heart of Klang town. Does the MPK know the consequences and ramifications of 400,000 people ending up at this critical part of the highway hardly a kilometer after Jambatan Kota and 300 meters before the Port Klang/Banting interchange?

You don’t have to be an Einstein to realize that traffic will virtually stall for motorists who slow down to gain entry into this new complex. Worse still the sharp curve is currently already a frequent site for traffic mishaps, what more with traffic flowing in and out.

Even if the developer had been overly optimistic and only 100,000 people converge at the complex and assuming that only 5% come in cars, that is 5,000 cars for the allocated 800 car park-lots the developer has reserved. The spillover to the highway will paralyze the KL-Klang Highway.

This would mean traffic which already now backs up to the Sungai Rasa toll gate will now be backing up to UITM. This would also mean that Klangites will either have to spend an additional hour or more on the road trying to get home or leave office two hours later just so this complex can be built at this spot where traffic is narrowed down?

You might just as well close the bridge down! Approving and building such a huge complex at this juncture of the highway is akin to building a pesticide factory next to the Klang Gates Dam!

Whose idea is this and how is Klang going to face the resultant traffic nightmare? Or is there a proposed massive tolled ring road complex to take traffic away from this area?

This cannot be possible as there are no roadworks taking place anywhere nearby and if there were plans indeed for such a traffic dispersal scheme, this complex would already be open next year.

It appears that we have learned nothing from the Zakaria Mat Deros incident. How ironical? Selangor’s eighth Menteri Besar, the late Dato Harun Idris once lived in the bungalow right on top of this hill as the District Officer of Klang but was later found to be technically corrupt and jailed for misappropriation of funds, the amount of which is going to be miniscule in comparison to the losses this country is going to face once this project is ready by this chopped up hill.

Our civil servants possibly know that this project is going to cost the economy that goes through Port Klang billions, not to mention the hardship it is going to cost the people who stay in Klang and commute to KL/Shah Alam daily but they do not have the administrative will nor courage to stand up to their political masters.

But residents of Klang who pass by this project daily are resigned to the fact that no one in the end will be accountable for the ensuing traffic disaster and as always the average man on the street will end up paying the price.

Location Plan

Proposed Complex by the side of the hill fronting KL-Klang Highway