Here's how we might be able to improve Klang Valley traffic

*Cover photo credits to Vulcan Post

Traffic in the Klang Valley is back, but it’s worse than ever. Roads are more congested as many Malaysians return to their offices. According to the Tomtom Traffic index, daily congestion during peak hours has gone up approximately 20 per cent, compared to the same period before the pandemic in 2019.

Waze is also seeing drivers sitting in stand-still traffic for almost two hours. Bearing in mind that traffic congestion can lead to various negative consequences, we spoke to some experts and urban transportation enthusiasts on how we might be able to quash this problem.

‘If Highways Are A No-Go, Then How?’

The concept of induced demand has been around since the 1960s, with several studies (just like this one) proving that it brings more harm than good, but that still hasn’t stopped the government from approving proposals for three new highway projects.

Associate Professor Dr. Nur Sabahiah Abdul Sukor from the School of Civil Engineering at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) said highway infrastructure projects will not reduce traffic in the long-run as this only adds more lanes which will attract more drivers to fill them up instead.

“The stretch between Kuala Lumpur, Negeri Sembilan and Melaka (The North-South Expressway) used to be just two lanes, but we added more lanes later on and yet until today, you still see that route being congested….This is because it is in parallel with the land use development around that area, such as Nilai 1 and Nilai 2,” she said.

While we may consider removing highways (as seen in the United States and South Korea), planning and execution of such a project will take a long time. Dr. Sabahiah suggested making use of the existing intelligent transportation systems (ITS), such as RFID and the Smart Tag.

Some SmartTag and RFID lanes are merged together at certain toll plazas.

Source: Malay Mail

“If you’re at a toll plaza, you can see that most drivers are stuck at the Touch N’ Go lanes, meaning many people are still using the card instead of RFID or SmartTag,” she said, adding that ITS devices help make the traffic flow smoother as drivers won’t have to stop too long or even slow down.

‘Less Car-Centric Policies, Please!’

Founder of BikeCommute@USM Dr. Nadhrah A. Kadir said that the policies in Malaysia tend to favour cars more —from the infrastructures to the petrol subsidy, so more budgets and also incentives should be directed towards the public transportation sector. She also noted that Malaysians have been used to the “car-mentality” for ages.

“Reducing car usage and dependency is what the government should focus on in terms of policies, but if people are not convinced or willing to follow these new rules, then there’s no point of having all these policies,” said the senior lecturer from the School of Social Sciences in USM.

Though at the end of the day, Dr. Nadhrah said there must firstly be alternative options for Malaysians to move around.

“If we don’t have reliable or efficient public transport and we put, for example, a congestion charge, nobody will like it because they have to pay more without being given any help first,” she contended.

‘Make It Walkable and Cyclable’

Switching from driving to public transportation is the most feasible way to get more drivers off the road. Problem is, the journey by public transport in the Klang Valley is not so simple. For example, the Light Rapid Transit (LRT) system was built to serve a specific type of commute –from outside of Kuala Lumpur city to inside it, but some commuters are travelling from one suburb to another. That means they would need to switch lines at least once during a single trip, causing more than half to spend more than 2 hours every day on public transit.

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Fazley Fadzil from public transport advocacy group TRANSIT Malaysia described this as an issue of First Mile-Last Mile connectivity. Although most public transit routes (LRT, MRT and Monorail) are already set in stone, Fazley believes there are many ways to go around the problem. One of it is to make existing communities walkable and cyclable.

“We can encourage that by building sheltered walkways leading to the station, or adding bicycle lanes to encourage cycling, so there must also be more bicycle parking spaces.

“Personally, we should not be aiming to create more car parking bays, like what we’re seeing at some stations so that people can Park and Ride, because that would take up even more land space and create nuisance which may discourage people from cycling or walking to the station,” said the urban planning student at the University of Technology Malaysia (UTM).