There was a period in the 1980s’ 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. Many thought that this would be a thing of the past when Plus expanded the Federal Highway and the NKVE and Kesas highways came to being. The Kota Raja Bridge was also expanded into a six- lane highway.
But the Majlis Perbandaran Klang (MPK), which had no guts to stand up to its greedy political masters, allowed frenetic, unplanned development to take place on either side of the highway including the road reserve. 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 four-lane Federal Highway of yesteryears at Taman Berkeley. The traffic from the upgraded Jambatan Kota can back-up for three 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, all exit at this section and worse still the ‘highway’ now has to contend with the new giant Centro office complex.
Shophouses and residential homes right under tension cables have been built at the old Chinese Maternity Hospital site over and above the already existing Government Clinic Complex - all still within this stretch. Furthermore new office towers have been approved hardly 10 meters from the highway right next to the Value Inn Hotel.
If you think this is incompetent town planning there is unfortunately more. As you crawl past the 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 which is nearing completion. This complex spans more then four acres, with four-storeys of shops and six-storeys of offices. It expects thousands to throng the complex as it is located at a 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 realise 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 at a sharp bend with traffic flowing in and out. If all the completed government offices on the same hill start operating, the spillover of traffic to the highway will paralyse the KL-Klang Highway.
Klang residents have been suffering silently as a result of this traffic congestion. To make matters worse, free flowing traffic was realigned at the Jalan Stesen area following the opening of the Galeri Di Raja during the Deepavalli period which has brought traffic now to almost a standstill at the Tengku Kelana area. If you take a look at the old market place, BN’s typical land grabbing ways are there for everyone to see. The old market has been replaced by a giant multi-storey shopping and office complex with a riverside mosque to boot to which accessibility is anyone’s guess.
On the Kesas Highway side, the interchange is again choked as a result of development due to Bukit Tinggi, Bandar Botanic and the new Jaya Jusco complex. How is all this possible without taking into consideration residents who now have to crawl through this daily nightmare of traffic? With the MPK now busily doing road and tunnel works on the Chi Liung side of the bridge. it’s now back to the 5am crawl of the 1980s.
Our civil servants possibly know that all these projects are 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. All this has been done at the whims and fancies of spineless MPK officers at the behest of greedy politicians for which Klang residents have to ultimately pay the price. With virtually no proper public transport to speak of, Klang residents working in Shah Alam and KL will have to probably sleep in their cars.
Billions were spent on Langkawi and Putrajaya, and trillions are going to be spent on growth corridors. But there was not one bureaucrat or politician who had the common sense to note that this important port town will require another one or two bridges.
This lie must stop. Klang residents cannot and will not put up with this nonsense to meet the ends of the MPK’s greedy councilors and politicians.
