Fadillah mulls bringing in Rapid KL to ease congestion
KUCHING: The service of Rapid KL might be the immediate solution to solve public transport woes in Petra Jaya.
In making this suggestion, Works Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof said at the state level, Kuching North City Commission ( DBKU), the state government and federal government need to discuss on how to improve public transportation to ease traffic flow and to have less vehicles on the road.
“With buses as public transport, we can allow people to take the services and that will definitely ease the percentage of road users but the condition for this to happen is that we have to offer the best public transportation,” he told reporters after visiting the project site of Datuk Temenggong Abang Kipali Abang Akip roundabout in Petra Jaya here yesterday.
“This is the second choice for the state government if they want to ease traffic congestion and have a smooth traffic flow from Petra Jaya to Kuching City,” he added.
Fadillah said they were working closely with Rapid KL at the federal level on bringing its service here.
“In principle we have agreed and hopefully it can be implemented here soon. That will be an option,” he said further.
Commenting more, Fadillah pointed out that whatever road project the city has to ease traffic there will always be a bottleneck in the city.
“I don’t dare to say that traffic in Kuching will be smooth and the traffic congestion between Petra Jaya and Kuching will be solved. There is still a lot of bottleneck even though we have the Datuk Temenggong Abang Kipali Abang Akip roundabout when the project is completed,” he said.
He also mentioned that traffic congestion also occurs along Green Road, the junction of Jalan Muhibah, underneath Satok flyover near Bank Negara and at the Sarawak Museum and RTM area.
“If there are many junctions along the main roads, the traffic flow will always be slow during peak hours and these are the traffic bottlenecks we are facing daily,” he said.
He revealed that they had discussed the feasibility of using Mass Rapid Transit ( MRT) at the state and federal levels to reduce traffic congestion but said their priority now is on improving public bus service.