Find solutions to traffic woes in KK before the worst to come soon.

Find solutions to traffic woes in KK before the worst to come soon.  

Our Transport problem in Kota Kinabalu and around need very urgent attention and action in terms of our roads, transportation mediums and parking.

How do we rate our transport and mobility thereof in Kota Kinabalu and beyond and around the hinterlands?  It is indeed timely that we rate our transport systems so that we can strive for some improvement in whatever sectors as we move forward.

Meanwhile, it is all talks only of some improvement in our transport issues in Kota Kinabalu and nothing has been done to make such desired improvement happen.  Actually, we have allowed our transport matters getting worst rather than see any improvement.

Our main medium of transport in KK is still the vehicles (private and commercial) on the limited roads in KK.  The public transport like the buses of various sizes are still insignificant and we do not even have a central bus station in central Kota Kinabalu. For KK with limited roads and widening of such roads impossible, any sacrifice for a bus lane would certainly cause more congestion on the roads as the population of vehicles has increased in many folds since a decade ago.  Has anyone done a research why much more vehicles are in our roads daily?

I know for sure there are insufficient car parking spaces in both central business district and other outlying satellite townships.

I did experience driving in the city on the birthday of  TYT (Saturday) when the roads were clogged up by vehicles even in early afternoon and it took me to find a parking space in Suria Sabah after an hour as the area around there were congested by thousands of vehicles.  Are we going to see the worst to come?

Would such congestion be good for the business community as the shoppers converge into CBD to visit various shopping malls?  Would such congested roads deter shoppers and avoid coming to KK as it is indeed meaningless to spend so much time and money wasting on the roads in search of parking?

In every satellite towns around Kota Kinabalu, we do see similar traffic congestion almost everywhere with double parking and at times triple parking causing much inconvenience to other roads users.  Some of these retail business like restaurants would have low patrons due to cars parking the whole day using season monthly tickets rather than allow a free flow of customers who more likely patronise such high street restaurants.  So such establishments would not have enough customers without a turnover of parked cars.  Instead such high streets should be marked RED instead of other colours.  There is such a street in Damai Plaza in the block of the post office  where a wide road can be reduced to two lanes only due to double or even triple  parked cars when the usual parking spaces are occupied by season tickets holders.  Would not DBKK consider mark that high street RED?

You all know that blocking cars by illegal parked cars are common but some do not come to drive their cars available when demanded.

A known place of very heavy illegal parking daily is the Queen Elizabeth Hospital 1 where the solution is not in sight.

There are too many traffic woes in KK that can cause accidents.  I would like to mention that in the Lintas Road where a few flyovers are under construction, the traffic signs are inadequate and can be misleading.  Even at night, certain stretches of road near the Lido junction and Hotel No. 5 are not adequately lit to allow users to feel safe especially during rain. So is the supervision of such development good enough?

I have been writing at times on traffic issues.  I thank Daily Express for publishing my letter early this year about the stretch of uneven road near Imago.  The people in the area had been complaining for months about that “rocking” access road to two business centres but to no avail. Since my letter, that only access road was repaired.

In recent years, the travelling consumers have been served with e-haling cars like Uber, Grab and others.  Such services have sort of reduced vehicles on the roads and stress on the limited parking space in CBD.  Unfortunately, there is a lack of competition due to the withdrawal of the more superior E-systems of Uber.  Unless Grab pulls up its overall system including improvement in its E-system, the travelling public can feel very frustrated at times for various reasons with unexplained unnecessary delays and cancellations of requests for cars not to mention the higher charges at most times.  Would Grab care to improve its operations when it is a near monopoly ?  Would Grab want to know what it does not know? Should Uber be welcome back to Sabah in the wake of Ubah (sound similar) of Government? 

Many roads in the city are under flash flood even when a bit more downpour making driving hazardous. Maintenance of the roads are also much to be desired. 

Would DBKK and all relevant authorities seriously consider our traffic congestion and lacking parking spaces to reduce the very heavy costs of transportation and mobility with regular town hall events ?  

Joshua Y C Kong, 9/10/2018