Dear Honourable Mentri Besar of Selangor,  

You have mentioned in a recent news report that the Selangor state government will not oppose the construction of any new highway as long as it benefits the people.

We should be pro-development as long as it benefits the people. And in the case of the Kinrara-Damansara Expressway (Kidex), if it benefits the people, the development should go ahead.

You must be very busy and have no time to go through the 3cm-thick Traffic Impact Assessment (TIA) report on Kidex.

Perhaps you can let me highlight some salient points from this report so you could form your opinion of whether Kidex will benefit the people. This report, for your information was commissioned by Kidex themselves.

From the TIA report:

1. Kidex has not achieved its objective that it has slated to do. The highway was mooted to alleviate traffic on the Lebuhraya Damansara-Puchong (LDP). But according to the TIA, the LDP will still be jammed after the highway is fully operational.

2. According to the TIA, Kidex itself will be jammed up in 10 years.

3. Kidex will feed into Kesas, Federal Highway and the New Pantai Expressway (NPE), which are all projected to be saturated with traffic when Kidex is completed. You can travel on the Kidex but will end up jammed when you are entering these highways.

If Kidex’s own TIA report acknowledges that the highway will not help achieve its original objective of alleviating traffic congestion, why do we still want to go ahead and build it?

May I suggest that in the name of development, use the RM2.4 billion to plan a public transit system that will work for the next 100 years not one highway that only last 10 years.

Please focus on development in public transportation, MRT, LRT, BRT.

Even if it’s out of your hand to provide public transport, at least don’t encourage the growth of private vehicles.

Our city urgently needs to increase ridership in public transportation and reduce the demand for private vehicles. Do not encourage the growth of cars by building more highways.

I am certain the urban dwellers of Greater Kuala Lumpur, the people opposed to Kidex, will fully support this move.

You see, we the rakyat are pro-development. Just anti-bad development.

AR ANG BC is an architect, urban planner and a concerned rakyat of Greater Kuala Lumpur.