Link housing estates with more roads

The authorities have been urged to build more interconnecting roads between housing estates as a means to reduce the traffic congestion on the Damansara-Puchong Highway (LDP).

Barisan Nasional chief coordinator for Puchong, Datuk Lau Yeng Peng said motorists had to use the LDP not only to get out of Puchong but also to move from one housing estate to another within Puchong.

“It would help ease the traffic problems here if there were more roads between residential areas,” he said during a meeting he initiated with LDP concessionaire Litrak at his office in Puchong to highlight the long-standing traffic woes.

“Residents coming from the back end of Puchong go through the Plaza Puchong Barat toll plaza.

“Most of the time, they get stuck in a traffic jam immediately upon exiting the toll.”

He said to avoid this, many motorists headed to the Elite Highway using the route that took them past the Proton plant.

“Unfortunately, sometimes this route too gets jammed up in the morning, especially at the traffic lights that are right before the turning into Elite Highway,” he added.

Lau, who is Puchong Gerakan division chairman, also urged the Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) to relocate several bus stops and taxi stands along the LDP so that traffic flow would not be interrupted.

“Traffic jam is not a new problem. It has been there for so long and we do not see any positive measures taken by the state government to overcome the problem,” he said.

At the briefing, Litrak CEO Sazally Saidi pointed out that since 1999, when LDP was built and started operations, it had undertaken RM900mil worth of enhancements on the LDP.

“From the initial 40,000 vehicles per day, traffic volume has gone up to 440,000 vehicles per day. “

Of that number, he said, some 260,000 vehicles passed through the Penchala and Sunway/PJS toll plazas while 180,000 vehicles passed through the Putrajaya and the USJ/PJ toll plazas daily.

Lau said other contributing factors to the jam were not only the increase in vehicles plying the LDP but also the spillover traffic from the Federal Highway where some one million motorists ply daily.

“If the Federal Highway gets choked up in the morning, the backflow can go as far as the Sunway toll,” he said.

Sazally assured that Litrak would be upgrading LDP in Puchong by widening road shoulders and building an additional flyover alongside the existing flyover near the Puchong United club.

By The Star