Ride on, Selangor
Selangor aims to take the lead by building urban cycling lanes. In fact, Pakatan rakyat Selangor, in their 2013 election manifesto, promised to build “bicycle lanes in new housing areas” in “critical towns” such as Shah alam, Petaling Jaya, Subang Jaya, Klang and Kajang to reduce traffic congestion and promote healthier living.
elizabeth Wong, the Selangor executive councillor for Tourism, Consumer affairs and environment, says, “our target is to have 200km of bike lanes in the next five years.”
georgetown in Penang has already set up some cycling lanes, and in September even Kuala lumpur announced plans to “study” the possibility of bike lanes. Indeed, with politicians from both sides being regularly photographed on bicycles, one may even think that cycling has crept into the political agenda.
Non-cyclists planners
While there is some political will from the top to build bike lanes, the devil, as usual, is in the details of implementation.
earlier this month, Wong joined a group of cyclists to pedal about 10km around PJ to get a first-hand look at what needs to be done.
Three officers from MBPJ’s town planning department were a bit reluctant to join the ride, and one of them said, “It’s too dangerous for YB elizabeth to cycle without police outriders.”
It turns out that none of the officers were cyclists, and that they had been planning the bike lanes by looking at examples from the Internet, while consulting some cyclists. But can non-drivers plan roads and highways? Can non-cyclists plan bike lanes?
Despite the absence of outriders, Wong gamely proceeded to ride. one of the town planners almost got into an accident by riding directly over a drain cover which had grates parallel to the road. This has been a longstanding complaint of cyclists, as such grates can trap narrow bicycle wheels and cause riders to fall and get hurt, or even killed.
The obvious solution to that particular problem is to turn the grates 90 degrees, so that bike wheels can pass over safely, but implementation has been patchy and some death-traps remain.
The town planner in question said that such drain covers were “standard” and cyclists should instead ride on the pavement.
(When contacted later, he said, “Ini kena bincang dengan pengarah bahagian engineering jalan. (have to discuss this with the director of the road engineering section).”)
Jeff lim, who is behind the Bicycle Map Project of Kl and PJ (www.facebook.com/ groups/CyclingKualalumpur), says that the surveys by him and his team of volunteers shows that both cities are still very cycle-able.
“We are glad to see interest from the Selangor state government to gather feedback from the community of cyclists-commuters on the design of a bicycle infrastructure.”
He says it’s “a great start” but adds that the process of engagement has been “slow and challenging”.
“We would also love to work with Kl City Hall, but getting in touch with them is proving to be difficult.”
landscape architect Seksan added, “I generally don’t like foreign consultants. But this might be one area where we need to seek foreign expertise, perhaps from Holland or Denmark.”
“They have more than 40 years of experience on designing bike lanes and we are so far behind that we cannot afford to reinvent the wheel!”
later on in our ride, when crossing a busy road, the cyclists chose the safest option – they carried their bikes up and down a pedestrian bridge and Wong got a first-hand “feel” of doing this herself.
“lucky I’ve been going to the gym to train my arm muscles,” she laughed. However, an easier way is to install a small metal railing or ramp at the side of the stairs so that cyclists can push their bikes up and down such bridges.
In fact, even before any bike lanes are built, there are many small, quick and cheap measures that the local council can implement to make cycling easier, and at the end of the ride, the cyclists presented a list of such requests to Wong ( see Simple, cheap cyclist steps).
SK Yeong, who cycle-commutes to work everyday, said: “The ride with eli Wong and MBPJ was good. We are engaging with people who have the capacity to make positive changes. It might take a while but if done regularly, some stones will be moved.”
“My 2013 Christmas wish from the Selangor government is to just to have proper parking space for bicycles in public places.” 1. Designating dual purpose sidewalks – for pedestrians and cyclists. 2. repairing potholes and clearing obstacles such as metal posts and rocks that hinder cycling on sidewalks. 3. Having mountable ramps (small slopes) so that cyclists can ride from sidewalks to and from the road. good for wheelchairs too. 4. Safe metal drain covers. 5. Create bike-friendly overhead pedestrian bridges with a Uchannel ramp on one side of the stairs so that cyclists can roll the bikes up and down overhead bridges. 6. give incentives for malls and offices to have bike racks where cyclists can safely lock their bikes to. also, consider encouraging for malls and offices to have shower facilities so that cyclists can freshen up after arrival.