Wednesday March 10, 2010

Bus lanes worsen congestion at Syed Putra

JALAN Syed Putra is an arterial carriageway that connects the heart of Kuala Lumpur to Seremban and the South, Petaling Jaya, Shah Alam and Jalan Klang Lama.

Needless to say, this road carries heavy traffic at all times of the day and night. Constant congestion is inevitable, and bus lanes just aggravate the situation.

The main bottleneck seems to occur at the bus stand at the flyover leading to Mid Valley Megamall and this causes the congestion to build up as far back as to the Central Market.

The irony of it all is that at 4.45pm on weekdays, a traffic policeman would stop and issue traffic summons to cars using the bus lanes but at 5pm, the same policeman will beckon traffic into these same lanes to speed up the flow. So why have these bus lanes in the first place?

For a long time, Jalan Syed Putra was part and parcel of the Federal Highway and should be treated like one as it is a dual carriageway. Under the international driving code, bus lanes should not be allowed on highways or dual carriageways. As such, these lanes should be removed from this road.

I also notice that in Malaysia, bus lanes are operational from Mondays to Saturdays from 7am till 8pm except on public holidays. Since this country, including government agencies, follows the five-day work-week, is it still necessary to operate these lanes for six days?

ROADTAX PAYER,
Kuala Lumpur.

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