Traffic congestion and Kuala Lumpur are definitely a synonymous. When people mention KL, they talk about the traffic jams and frustration instead of all the wonderful places like KL Twin Towers, Dataran Merdeka and Central Market.

It does not matter which highway we talk about. Even if we perpetually drive much slower than the speed limit, the trips are so much longer with all the jams. The highway concessionaires and the government gave assurances that the highways would reduce traffic and traveling time but the consumers always end up the losers.

Instead the tolls have to be increased as agreed in the secret concessionaire agreements. Consumers and road users must demand for a detailed justification for tolls increase. To further aggravate the traffic congestion, I understand that about thousands of new cars enter Malaysian roads annually. Why not? Public transport is nothing to shout about when it comes to getting to our destination on time during office-hours.

I have used the Federal Highway everyday for the past five years and the traffic situation has never improved. I have tried other alternatives by taking the Sprint Highway but the traffic was a crawl from the toll gate itself and it took me two hours to get home from Petaling Jaya to Taman Maluri. It should not take more than 40 minutes.

People who are traveling everyday from KL to places like Shah Alam and Sunway can’t afford to use alternative highways as the toll rates can easily come up to RM10 per day one-way. So they have no choice but to use cheaper routes.

I believe, however, that one of the main reasons for traffic jams - especially on the Federal Highway - is due to the bottleneck exits. Most of the drivers do not keep to their lane and once they see their exit, they tend to make sudden shift to the left or right to cut into the bottleneck exit.

This is one of the main reasons that causes traffic-jams. One very good example is the exit near Mid valley Megamall from Federal Highway and the exits to Jalan 222 and Bandar Sunway. I used to stay in office up till pm just to avoid the traffic but it is still not helping.

Traffic jams are becoming such a nuisance for the working class. It causes stress, wastes precious fuel, emits dangerous emissions and takes away valuable family time.

I strongly recommend that the federal government and the state governments coordinate and integrate their development plans to ensure that they improve our quality of life rather than becoming another source of stress. Already, one in four Malaysians suffer from stress.

A well-integrated public transport system that is accessible to all would be a boon for the economy and productivity of the country. If such changes happen, it will definitely be a quantum leap for our country.