I read with surprise that Senior Minister Fadillah Yusof has approved 3 new highways at the federal government level for the Klang Valley, including PJD Link. While the talk of the highway revival has been widespread since 2 years ago, the approval comes following a long period of silence from the Senior Minister/federal government.
Suddenly, we hear that the federal government has approved the project without any public consultation whatsoever and without any disclosure of justification, traffic, environmental and social impact studies. To add insult to the matter, Senior Minister Fadillah “hopes” that the highway will improve connectivity. He doesn’t seem too convinced himself that it would.
It is baffling that the studies were not demanded and decisions were not based on solid facts but ‘hope’. We all know that any new elevated highway in a matured township like PJ is going to cause major negatives, such as noise, dust, making the city ugly, taking up precious air space that could be devoted to future LRT lines and possibly even making congestion worse at the local level if on and off ramps are not placed in the right location. Were the locations presented with justification of how it can improve the traffic congestion in PJ?
Thus any decisions to intrude into matured build up areas must not simply be done without due care or ‘hope’. For example, PJ residents have accepted the LRT and MRT constructions as the benefits to society outweigh the negative impacts. Fadillah talked about any new highway would also have to follow a development plan based on a five-year study. It’s about time the federal government comes clean on this study for public scrutiny.
Instead of focusing on highways mooted and designed by the private sector, Fadillah as senior minister should be working on further improving the public transportation system in the Klang Valley. We still do not have the connectivity and reliability that most international livable cities do. Selangor has produced a transport masterplan, the least Fadillah could do is to implement that plan with Federal resources, rather than follow the agenda of 3 private companies.
I strongly urge the Minister of Works, Fadillah to disclose solid facts from the 3 studies now, to justify this decision and not base it on ‘hope’. Although, it would not surprise me that this decision was made without demanding for the three crucial studies.