Anyone care to enlighten?

Users of the Tropicana link are generally an impatient lot. More so if they are heading towards Bandar Utama. There is a U turn near Menara Lien Hoe but it’s a few hundred metres away. During peak hours, the queue is long and a ten to fifteen minutes wait is not unusual. Sometimes, extra cautious drivers made things worst as they will make the turn only when the road is empty. If they see the shadow of a car which is still many seconds away, they will wait. And they will move the car only after the car has long passed. All it takes is just a handful of such drivers and you have the compound effect of seconds running into minutes.

The extra distance and the long waiting time has thus enticed many drivers to take a short cut at the T-junction near the Tropicana main entrance. They know it’s illegal but the advantage is hard to resist. Occasionally, they do find themselves caught as they are waved down just before the tunnel. Our man in uniform are smart and when they see an opportunity to enforce the law, they do.

Another reason users are reluctant to use the U turn is the timing of the traffic lights. At a T-junction, there are three group of road users and the lights will change in a round robin fashion. Common sense will tell us that the largest group of users should be given a bigger allocation. This is to ensure there is no bottleneck. For some reasons, this is not the case here and one group of users seems to be given more time than required. This has created a problem at this junction when two group of users are always kept waiting when there is hardly any traffic for the 3rd group of users. During peak hours, a very long queue can be seen stretching more than half a kilometer away and complaints to MBPJ seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

One community staying near by has been asking for a right turn so that users of the Tropicana link at the end of this road can make a right turn towards the tunnel. We were told there were resistance from another influential community in the area and thus the request has been gathering dust in the MBPJ office. Several months ago, the request was made again in a meeting with the local councillor and MBPJ and MBPJ’s engineering department has confirmed there is no technical reasons why the request should be turned down.

Persistence finally pays off and the request has now been granted. Work has started a few weeks ago and it is almost ready just waiting for the road to be re-surfaced and the traffic lights re-calibrated. It should be ready in a few weeks time, hopefully before the Chinese New Year.

We hope the re-calibration will be done fairly so that all road users have their fair share of time based on traffic volumes. In addition, we hope MBPJ will also re-calibrate the two traffic lights further down the road heading towards Kota Damansara. They are causing unnecessary stoppages as there is hardly any traffic exiting from the neighbourhood.

Merry Christmas to all Christian residents in this neighbourhood.

To all others, have a good holiday break!

Isn’t it strange how every year at this time, the traffic lights at the junction of PJU 1A/3 – PJU 1A/20 goes off?  I remember clearly last year it was November as well and it did not get fixed for 3 weeks.  I wonder how many accidents occurred at that junction.

This year, the problem is compounded by the off street lights north of that junction along the Seri Pilmoor bungalows.  I’ve just returned from my morning walk, and I was not surprised to see an accident had just happened.

Anyway, I’ve called MBPJ and they told me the faulty lights have already been reported.  But the interesting thing is that the staff said the traffic lights/road has yet to be handed over to MBPJ.  Say what?  I wonder if the roads are only going to be handed over to MBPJ after the completion of Seri Pilmoor.

Subang airport’s connectivity will be boosted with plans to link the terminal with the KTM Komuter service and shuttle buses.

KTM Komuter trains could start servicing Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport by next year, said Janardhanan Gopala Krishnan, chief operating officer of terminal operator Subang Skypark Sdn Bhd.

He added that the train stop would be located at Commercial Nexus, a proposed shopping mall across the road from the terminal, which is now an open-air car park.

“We have proposed to extend the KTM Komuter line (to the airport).

“There is already a spur line to the roundabout (on the way to the airport).

“Subject to approval, it should be ready in 15 to 18 months,” he told reporters recently.

Janardhanan said Skypark wanted to provide seamless transfer for passengers by improving connectivity to the airport.

He said shuttle buses connecting the terminal to the Kelana Jaya LRT station and KL Sentral should begin operating by the middle of the year.

“We are in talks with private operators. We are still speaking with RapidKL on (public) buses plying this area,” he said.

On the status of the RM150mil Commercial Nexus, he said they were finalising the concept design, and construction work was expected to start in the second half of this year.

He said the mall, with about 600,000 sq ft of retail space, would not only serve passengers but also the community in nearby areas such as Ara Damansara.

“We want to get away from the mindset that if you go to an airport, you are just sending or picking someone up,” he said.

Come and join to wrap herb plants as a door gift for Malaysiakini 10 Years Celebration Dinner on 28-November-2009.

http://www.malaysiakini.com/weare10/index.html

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What a way to spend a Friday morning….Green meaningful fun, making 1000 people happy