I have been waiting with bated breath for some reprieve on the worsening traffic congestion we Klang Valley people are facing.

I also saw the on-and-off plans and decisions the works ministry has been announcing and I am disappointed with the way something as important as traffic congestion in the Klang Valley is being handled.

Why does the works minister even bother stating the obvious? We all know that the Lebuhraya Damansara-Puchong (LDP) is congested but so are practically all the main ‘nerves’ and ‘arteries’ in the Klang Valley.

What we need are concrete plans to address the perpetual standstill on our roads which is costing us valuable time and affecting our quality of life.

I work in the city centre and on an average, I spend four hours on the road. I work for an employer who runs the organisaton on a strict clock-in and clock-out basis.

We scramble to get ourselves in the office by 8am but when we clock-out at 5.15pm, it is considered ‘early’.

I barely get to see my kids for an hour on weekdays and that worries me and I am just an average working mother dying to strike a balance a good working and home life.

Coming back to the congestion, the talks about extending the LRT line is all talk and no action.

I remember seeing the story being front-paged in the media when 9 th Malaysia Plan was announced and a year later, we have seen no action at all.

Now the ill-informed works minister catches the headlines with some ‘parallel road’ for the LDP and then reverses the decision and now we have talks about an LRT extension again but this time the minister makes it sound like a novel idea!

The works minister is shortsighted and he has been only ‘all talk’. Go after the LDP by all means but make sure the Federal Highway and MRR 2, for example, are also congestion free.

And does it even bother anyone that we have high incidences of flash floods adding to our traffic woes?

Incidentally, the call by the minister to the LDP concessionaire to reduce their toll rates seems interesting but what will that achieve? In this instance, reducing the toll should not be the focus but rather measures to reduce congestion should be the top priority.

I am not a daily user of the LDP but from what I see, there are far too many junctions, intersections and interchanges along the highway with a high volume of traffic at the toll-free section.

A cruise along the LDP will reveal several number of upcoming high-density projects which will add to the traffic woes on the LDP.

There must be concerted effort on the part of the works ministry, local councils and the LDP operator on how to manage the increase in traffic from new developments.