Earlier, you read about the ban on heavy vehicles entering the KL city centre during peak hours, a move by the Federal Territories Ministry via DBKL to ease traffic congestion in the capital city. That is one of the short-term measures decided by a new task force set up to look into worsening traffic jams.

DBKL and the PDRM’s traffic department will step up “more drastic” enforcement during peak hours, which is defined as 6.30 am to 9.30 am in the morning, and 4.30 pm to 7.30 pm in the evening. Physical signboards and Variable Message Sign (VMS) have been set up to announce the heavy vehicle ban, and there are parking areas for the big lorries as they wait to enter the city.

Aside from the lorry ban, the task force – which is chaired by deputy FT minister Datuk Seri Jalaluddin Alias – also announced some medium-term measures to ease congestion in the city. This one involves regular motorists, you and me.

The task force has decided to ban curb side parking during morning and evening rush hours, and will seek to cancel street parking lots on main roads in stages. They did not elaborate on the coverage area of the street parking ban and what constitutes a jalan utama – we’ll see.

Also banned are hawkers and vendors on the road shoulders during rush hours. DBKL will also be cancelling vendor lots in stages, especially on the sides of main roads. The idea behind this is simple – vendors like to set up stalls in busy areas for the high visibility and footfall, and those who stop their cars to purchase from the vendors clog up traffic. Have you noticed the increased amount of new street vendors in commercial areas since Covid?

Other measures include the updating of signboards and the enforcement of yellow box offences at junctions. The latter is particularly annoying, as cars that shamelessly sit in the yellow box block traffic from all other directions, “wasting” their green light opportunity.

The KL traffic jam task force also recommends multi-use toll plaza lanes (Touch n Go, SmartTag and RFID for every lane) in place of the current dedicated lanes and tidal flow during peak hours.

There are six proposed long-term actions, and they are the improvement of first and last mile connectivity for public transport, better integration between highway operators and traffic management, the improvement of public transport such as the GOKL bus and campaigns to encourage the use of public transport, the improvement of support infrastructure (underpass, covered walkways, etc), and the enforcement of bus lanes in the city.

So, what do you think of the bans and the proposals – any concerns or ideas?

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