Solutions for traffic in KK are very urgent.

Solutions for traffic in KK are very urgent.

According to Nielsen Global Survey of Automotive Demand, almost every Malaysian owns a car, the third highest rate of car ownership in the world. Kota Kinabalu City (KK) has a population of over 600,000, imagine what it is like when half a million cars compete for 10,314 public parking lots (exclude private parking spaces) in and around KK every day especially many people are moving into KK from the east coast towns possibly for good.

There is a pressing need for improvement in the general transportation system in Kota Kinabalu.

KK CBD is very built up with a set of roads with little scope of expansion or improvement for the traffic flows.

KK CBD lacks public carparks both ground and multi storeyed car parks hence traffic impeded by people looking for carparks convenient for their needs like doing business and other activities.

KK CBD is a narrow patch of land between Signal hill and the sea hence we have to explore the most efficient and capable system to smooth transportation in KK as traffic jam is losses for every consumer.

DBKK has a proposal for Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) together with one way system in CBD and yet to be launched soon according to the Mayor.  Buses have limitation in passenger loads and narrow roads in KK would become narrower for other vehicles if one lane in the existing road system is allocated for buses in and out of KK.  BRT using many buses and drivers may not serve the travelling public adequately during peak  hours if the intention is to  reduce private vehicles on the roads within CBD and maybe BRT  would provide  nothing  beyond the peak hours or 24/7.  Special bus lanes introduced before in the 1990s were aborted in KK upon public demand as the traffic jams could not be addressed as expected. There were also proposal for one way streets in KK CBD then but till now this has not been implemented for obvious reasons of KK has limited streets.

KK needs a transport system for longer hours daily if possible for 24/7 to cater for flows of local and tourists as tourists are coming in manifold increases.  Tourists tend to travel / move in all hours as air flights –in/out- are done at night too.

KK roads in and out from outlying towns like Keningau, Papar, Beaufort, Kinarut  to the south and Kota Belud/ Tamparuli / Ranau and Tuaran to the north and north east are congested in the peak hours for several hours and miles of cars are seen in the limited roads hence such travel on the roads are very costly in time and materials/fuel.

Even the BRT and the one way streets in KK CBD would not solve the existing daily traffic jams  throughout the day time in KK hence much bottle neck of incoming and outgoing traffic would still prevail .  Actually with one way streets in KK CBD and in the absence of adequate parking spaces to channel the traffic into adequate multi storeyed car parks within CBD , more traffic would be in the streets much longer as some parking space on the existing streets would be removed for the purpose of BRT as one streets system would mean turning off in “delayed” mode in the direction to look for car parking space hence more cars would be retained on the streets in longer slow queues .

One of the reasons for traffic jams in CBD is that cars take time to fill in vacant spaces in the street parking.  This is inevitable as there are not enough off-streets parking at the moment.

Even with the proposed one way streets and in the absence of adequate off street parking spaces, both the incoming and outgoing traffic of the narrow strip of land in KK CBD would be much slowed down hence unacceptable jams too.   One way streets system would be effective and efficient if KK CBD can be entered and exited in four directions..

Since consumers like their cars so much and like to park as near as possible to the destinations, buses  can be a low option for most consumers.  Honestly, are there really enough buses to serve the consumers within both the CBD and outlying areas in greater Kota Kinabalu?  For practicality purposes, how many buses would be available to move the heavy peak hours traffic for new satisfied consumers who are expected to switch from cars to buses?  Mobility in term of time and costs for the masses is very important for productivity to be enhanced.

So KK and outlying areas should look at the better options like MRT or LRT systems immediately for  time saving and ease of moving from the traffic jams on the existing streets and roads.  Basically buses would have the expected shortcomings in moving big numbers of people especially in the peak hours.

Another issue to the vehicle commuters from outlying areas into KK and KK CBD and in the very big number of cars daily, how would we find enough free of charge / low fee car parks at the buses terminals yet to be identified?

One thing is for sure, we cannot wait for 2022  for a liveable city in KK and the traffic systems much be addressed beyond BRT  immediately for other more capable systems to be in place as soon as possible.

Joshua Y C Kong 17 March, 2017