PUCHONG FOLKS, HOW LONG SHOULD WE ENDURE THE NIGHTMARE CALLED TOLL HIGHWAYS?
My daily commute to and fro is an absolute awakened nightmare and is totally intolerable. Being an income earner and a mom, I leave my home at 6.30am, after dropping off the kids at school, I reach Sunway Toll plaza by 7.10am and from then on, Its hell on the highway!!
Personally on a daily basis I spend RM9.80 on tolls and yet my travel time from Puchong to KL is not less than 3 hours per day!!! I have not calculated Petrol costs for being stuck in jams caused in the name of Toll Collection for highways supposedly to make our commute hassle free!!
On the LDP
Residents exiting out of Puchong during peak hours are stuck for almost an hour merely to pay toll and then to get on to the Federal Highway from the LDP. Often we cannot even get on to Federal Highway at the Motorola exit and have to go ahead to the U-Turn at Kelana Jaya, right through the LDP, the jam is at a crawl if not a standstill. Then when we hit the Federal highway, amazingly the traffic is at least moving!!!
On NPE
On exiting the NPE after paying toll of RM3.20, traffic is at a standstill for almost 20 – 25 minutes soon after the Pantai Dalam Toll Plaza, until the end of the highway at Jalan Bangsar, strangely here too, once you exit the NPE, traffic is free flowing on Jalan Bangsar!! Peak hours here too…
Now it boils down to the fact that we have reached the unacceptable situation where there is absolutely no accountability or the semblance of responsibility by Toll concessionaires, and they are blatant about it. They are primarily collecting tolls and creating the jam. At the IOI Mall interchange on LDP, lanes are hardly demarcated, so by pure guess work and smart manoeuvring we need to cross over to use either smart tag, touch & go or cash.
Call their info-lines and they will tell you that this is the regular weekday peak hour crawl – what excuse is this? But I say Wake up fellow Puchonians, why the heck are we paying tolls only to get stuck in a jam?
Seriously the Government should stop bickering among them selves and get down to work, what has to be focused upon is that thousands of Malaysians are suffering only to fill the pockets of the unscrupulous toll collectors!!
Peak hours on LDP are from 7am to 9.30am and from 5pm to 7.30pm. This is when most of us need to be on the road. The jams are so humungous and are created in the vicinity of the Toll Plazas, the onus then is on the toll concessionaires, to find a solution to this and immediately, otherwise quit collecting the toll.
As a mother, I am mindful that I do not have much time left to bring up the children properly, as with I am sure other parents. These jams created in the name of collection of tolls to provide us with a smooth commute, instead is causing acute waste of time, seriously damaging our mental and physical health, added to the un necessary cost of petrol for being stuck in a jam caused on account of toll collection.
It is simply unacceptable that we pay tolls and get stuck in traffic. If the concessionaires are collecting tolls, let them ensure a smooth flow of traffic, or else stop collecting the toll, because it is ridiculous for us to pay toll to be stuck endlessly in a jam.
I appeal to MT readers, if any of you know alternative routes from Puchong to KL that are toll free, please share it will us.
For those of you of want to voice your dissent, here are the numbers.
NPE :
Tel: 03-77838800
Fax: 03-77831111
NPE Infoline
1-300-88-1010
Email: [email protected]
LITRAK
Tel : 03-7494 7000
Fax: 03-7494 7016
Email: [email protected]
Write in to the Ministry of Works
Y.B. DATO' IR. MOHD ZIN BIN MOHAMED
MINISTER OF WORKS
http://www.kkr.gov.my/
Attend the talk
"Can We Have Our Highways Back?"
Venue: Crystal Crown Hotel, Petaling Jaya
Date: 18 February (Wed) Time: 7.30pm
The panel speakers include:
Sdr Lim Kit Siang, DAP Parliamentary Leader
Sdr Tony Pua, MP Petaling Jaya Utara
Sdr Teh Chi Chang, Economic Advisor to DAP Secretary-General
Other speakers to be confirmed
Puchong Folk, we have suffered enough, raise your voice against the traffic jams caused in the name of toll collection.
By
A frustrated Puchong Commuter.
