While Shah Alam is arguing over yet another addition to the myriad highways with the Damansara Shah Alam Elevated Highway (Dash), Kuala Lumpur and the Malaysians that work and spend leisure quality time in it needs to consider what to do to alleviate the clogged roads of the city.

While attitudes are adjusting towards using public transportation, there is a need for attitude adjustments in the form of those who still need to drive and those who cater to drivers. One such area within the Greater KL plan is Brickfields.

As Kuala Lumpur continues to evolve to reach a target of 10 million people in 2020, it is clear that what needs to be changed by now is no longer the width, number of lanes or even one-way flow of roads, but more so the attitudes of the people themselves.

There must be acceptance that what is needed is a paradigm shift within the mindsets of the Greater Kuala Lumpur residents towards using public transport instead of insisting on driving their own cars, which will only cause more congestion and be the root cause of the matter.

While City Hall and developers of new properties still coming up in the area are constantly coming up with traffic plans to help settle these issues even with the unavailability of land to widen lanes, these will be made irrelevant without attitude adjustments.

In Brickfields, there is no lacking in public transport with two monorail stations specific to the area and one grand public transport hub right on their doorstep.

And even more confusing, Brickfields even gets what I dub the ‘Singapore treatment’ of having the main transport hub connected through a mall, akin to many of the stations in our sister nation down under.

But that being said, there is a need to look at elevated walkways to increase connectivity and the ability of pedestrians to get from station to wherever they wish to go, and this needs to be looked at.

If anything, elevated walkways allow the removal of traffic lights and is symbolic towards zero tolerance for jaywalkers.

Encourage proper access for pedestrians

As such, instead of looking at it as an issue of a one-way street, I would instead recommend the issue of how to encourage proper access for pedestrians to and from KL Sentral itself into the surrounding areas as well as Brickfields.

Secondly, while asking City Hall and developers to look at traffic issues, why not deal with the root cause of it, which is - as always is the case - the attitudes of errant drivers double parking and clogging up the already narrow roads?

There is a need to have zero tolerance in dealing with this issue especially in Brickfields because like it or not, the area is a doorway into the heart of Kuala Lumpur.

Congestion in Brickfields does not only cause an inconvenience to its dwellers, but also travelers on the Federal Highway and even reaching Bangsar, Mid Valley and traffic from the New Pantai Expressway.

This is no longer just a Brickfields issue and as such, attitudes of both those who illegally park, the business owners who find it acceptable for their customers to do so, and even the authorities who are too slow to act or have a relaxed attitude, all need to adjust themselves accordingly.

Until then, such urgings to deal with traffic congestion are not dealing with the major problem and merely looking at a stop-gap measure towards a non-solution in the long term.

I understand that this is rather harsh, but the thing is this issue is going around in circles like repeats on Astro movie channels which is becoming rather irritating.

And quite honestly, since people can come to rallies in Kuala Lumpur by using the trains, perhaps it is time for them to consider using them for shopping and coming to work on a daily basis as well.