Highways to ease congestion or generate revenue?

 

From Traffic Planner

The idea that building more highways will help with traffic congestion is a misnomer.

The statement by the works minister two days ago that more highways have been given the go-ahead shows a flawed strategy on the part of the minister.

The fundamental problem with highways in Malaysia, and the Klang Valley in particular, is that most toll highways were built as a result of private sector proposals.

This means that the prime motive is almost always revenue generation.

When highway companies have more interest in collecting money at tolls than transport planning, the fundamentals are lost.

Transport planning is no longer transparent and beneficial to the people and the environment around it.

Traffic planning is then based on different considerations or set of criteria, of which capturing traffic volume (read: toll money) become the main factor in their assessment and evaluation.

The government should, in its local and master planning, set out the alignment and plan future highways for development purposes or, at least, on a needs basis.

For instance, the Pan-Borneo Highway in Sarawak is fully funded by the federal government and will not become a toll highway.

This highway was planned on a needs basis and built for the purpose of injecting development into rural Sarawak.

So, if that can be done in Sarawak, why can’t other states benefit in the same way?

Financial gains

Why should the government fall prey to companies who want to construct highways for financial gains?

The government should be the planner for the country and then only call for proposals from the private sector, and not the other way around.

In this way, the government controls the concessions and not the concessionaires control the government, dictating what and how they want it done.

More cars

The other flawed strategy is that by building more highways, it just invites more cars onto the roads.

So, the government is indirectly promoting the growth of car ownership and its usage without having any restrictions or consideration for public transport.

Is this the right strategy to promote the usage of public transport or to reduce our high carbon footprint?

In some cases, tolled highways have been avoided as many motorists do not wish to pay toll, if they could avoid it. They find alternative roads. Therefore, many car users jam up alternative toll-free roads to avoid paying.

As an example, traffic from Sungai Buloh is causing congestion every morning and every evening peak along main roads in Kota Damansara as they try to avoid the surrounding toll highways.

Therefore, the idea that constructing more highways will take traffic off these roads is false and ludicrous.

There are many other similar examples where traffic build-up within residential areas becomes high because motorists use local roads to avoid paying toll.

Is the minister aware of this phenomenal problem?

Has his ministry, especially the highways planning unit (HPU), studied and looked into these problems and the various impacts of building more and more elevated highways in many urban and residential areas?

What about the issues of safety, pollution, loss of property value and aesthetics by having highways too close to the residential areas?

Are these the kind of quality of life and Keluarga Malaysia concept of development that the government is promoting?

I think more and more people are saying “no” to more highways. - FMT

Traffic Planner is an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT