My City, My Car

Following my previous post about Malaysia, I thought of writing a few more posts on the country which I grew up and am familiar with. Growing up in Kuala Lumpur, I am very familiar with the city itself as well as the scent of my car. This is because I spent as much time in my car as I do walking in the streets of KL if not more. If anyone were to make an appointment with a Malaysian, chances are that he or she will be late. It is a usual occurrence in Malaysia. This has much to do with the attitude of Malaysian as well as the way the cities are planned and how we were brought up in the norm of delays due to traffic. The traffic in KL is on issue that is a constant topic of discussions among Malaysian next to food. There are several reasons that caused the traffic problems in Malaysia. Among them are:

1. The lack of a proficient public transportation
2. The ever increasing number of automobiles in Malaysia
3. The city and road infrastructure planning

The first two points are actually connected. This is due to the government subsidy of petrol and local car prices. The government policy of encouraging the use of cars during the 1980s and 1990s has made Kuala Lumpur one of the highest car per household ratio. The image below from a poster in a conference of Better Cities explains clearly the reason behind the growing number of cars in Malaysia in comparison to our South East Asian neighbours.

The focus of this post however is on the city and infrastructure planning that I believe are the main reason of traffic congestion in Kuala Lumpur. The city’s road infrastructure is planned in the manner of three ring roads that links the city and the suburbs together. The three ring roads, the Inner Ring Road (IRR), Middle Ring Road 1 (MRR1) and Middle Ring Road 2 (MRR2), each provides its function of connectivity. The IRR forms a ring that circles within the city center connecting the major urban precinct together and most city shopping malls are connected via IRR. The MRR1 is the ring road that circulates around the edge of the city center and acts to connect the MRR2 to the entry of the city. The MRR2 is the outer-most ring road which connects the surrounding residential suburbs in the Klang Valley.

The concept of the three ring road may seem logical. However, this prompts all the cars to head towards the ring roads causing massive traffic congestions and bottlenecks. The idea of gather the cars into a single road line and then disperse them to their desired location is not suitable for a city where the main transportation method is by car. The lack of good public transportation system to compliment the ring road system is the main cause of the traffic congestion issue in KL. To give an example of the traffic congestion in KL, my house in KL is right alongside the MRR2 highway. The traffic congestion begins every weekday at 6.30am and by 7.00am, cars are moving at the speed of 20-40km/h. It takes an hour to an hour and a half to travel from the MRR2 to the city during peak hours in a trip that would take 10 minutes during off-peak hours.

I believe that the ring road concept is a good way of connecting all the urban precincts and the suburbs in KL. However, in order for it to work effectively, there have to be a good public transport system that compliments the ring road system and subsequently reduce the number of automobile in KL to enhance the flow of traffic in the ring roads. The image below shows the effectiveness of a good public transport in reducing the number of cars.