KIDEX alignment in the Klang Valley

The controversial KIDEX highway is widely speculated to acquire an indefinite number of land plots and people's homes, grinding its way like a chainsaw through a "serene" neighbourhood. (It's really so congested now, it's anything but serene). But the Kidex, working in conjunction with the SKIP highway (see other proposed highways) to provide an alternative North-South alignment to the LDP or Lebuhraya Damansara-Puchong highway, which is an important but heavily choked North-South highway.

The origin of the problem is that the Klang Valley roads are not designed with a grid like matrix like in other cities, and so all these proposed brown-field highways try to correct the navigational inadequacies of the current highway networks. The closest North-South highways are the LDP, the NKVE and the MEX. I don't have a traffic projection software and a supercomputer in my garage, so I can't tell you what percentage of traffic it will alleviate, but I can tell you qualitatively that it will ease the pressure off the East-West highways like the Federal Highway.

But I have reservations for the northern termini of Kidex as it feeds into the northern sections of LDP and the NKVE, two chronic highways Kidex is supposed to remedy. It's definitely a case of diverting the jam somewhere else.

In the Google map below, KIDEX is in purple, while the LDP is the thick green line.


View KIDEX in the Klang Valley in a larger map

KTM Komuter Problems

Keretapi Tanah Melayu, KTM is the national railway company in Peninsular Malaysia. They inherited the railroad built by the British which consisted of single metre gauge tracks. One branch serves the West Coast and another serves the East coast. Only now, in the 21st century are these lines being upgraded to double track, and only the West Coast line, where the greatest economic impact will be felt.

As you may have guessed, the railways in Malaysia have long been neglected by the government. In the mid 1990s KTM introduced a new intraurban service using existing double electrified track in and around the Klang Valley known as KTM Komuter. The KTM rail corridor covers some very strategic areas in the valley, but over the years, bad maintenance and government neglect let commuters down reducing the service to an unviable public transport mode.



View KTM Komuter in a larger map



I think that unless a major overhaul and new tracks are laid, the KTM Komuter will still disappoint the commuters no matter how many 6-car trains they get. These are my reasons.

1. Too many services utilize the same double tracks. KTM Komuter, Intercity and freight services all share the same line. With the government planning to increase the traffic on all 3 services, the tracks sure are getting crowded. Thus unlike dedicated lines like the LRT or MRT, KTM Komuter will just never carry the same volumes as other intraurban rail.
2. With the recent track extensions, KTM Komuter now services Tg. Malim in Selangor’s northern border, Port Klang, Batu Caves and Senawang in Negeri Sembilan. That all amounts to about 200 kilometres of track. I’d say KTM is over extending itself; you need lots of trains to ply a route. And the problem is most of your traffic is in the centre of your line, KL in this case, and the outer fringes of the line get very little.
3. A bottleneck in KL. The two Komuter lines itself share around 6km of line and 4 stations the heart of Kuala Lumpur. The ETP plans to have a freight diversion line in Subang but it doesn’t seem enough. A complete bypass of the Klang Valley is better from South Selangor to Rawang.
4. Too many stations. The legacy railroad has a lot of stations that resemble shacks by the side of the road and receive practically no traffic. KTM has got to rationalise the number of stations and maybe build some in popular or upcoming areas.
5. KTM tracks occupy land with the lowest elevation in some areas and are prone to flooding. When it floods the services come to a standstill.
6. Legacy management team. The management team with their old style mentality has to manage the whole train system of Malaysia, and cannot afford to concentrate on Klang Valley. Should Syarikat Prasarana Negara Berhad (SPNB) take over Komuter?

They’ve got to rethink KTM and if or how it can be turned into an efficient people mover system in the core urban areas. After all, waiting in the wings are integration plans between LRT, MRTand Komuter lines. Why bother integrating if the Komuter service cannot handle the traffic?

Paramount & SEA Park in Pictures

Paramount Caltex Station, used to be a bus depot

EU Institute, Jalan 20/16A

Meng Kee Steam Soup, Jalan 20/22

Even busier at night, Jalan 20/22

Millenium 86 is busy only at night, Jalan 20/22

There is no place to park, Jalan 20/16A

Old Post Office at Paramount

Main road Jalan 20/7 is very narrow considering the heavy traffic,
 look people have started double parking

Jalan 20/7 service road. The parking on the right is newly constructed

Jalan 20/7 has not enough parking. Original linear parking on the left
and new parking on the right can't cater.

Jalan 21/12, is the main road that links Paramount to SEA Park

Jalan 21/12 has no service lane so it's always congested.

Paramount Garden and SEA Park of Petaling Jaya

Feng Shui: Paramount no more

Feng Shui: Peak of the Paramount Garden

Feng Shui: Foodie favourite

Feng Shui: Living in Paramount

Feng Shui: South- East Asia Park

Feng Shui: Hilly Sea Park

Feng Shui: Valleys of Sea Park

Almost every Friday in the Star newspaper’s property pullout, there is a feature on fengshui by a David Koh, a master sifu of some sort. Over the past few years he has been visiting Klang Valley neighbourhoods applying his fengshui theories and determining fengshui’s effects on the locality by merely observing how much renovation has been done to the premises or even how newly painted the building is. Apparently a can of Dulux is all it takes to fool a fengshui master.

However, his findings for my neighbourhood seemed skin deep and lacked any historical basis. Paramount and SEA Park was developed in the late 1960s as one of the newest sections of Petaling Jaya. The commercial areas of Paramount and SEA Park were built with intentions of both being a thriving town centre. It had amenities other town centres could only dream of.

You could find a standalone post office, and two iconic cinemas, Paramount Cinema and Ruby Cinema in SEA Park itself. There was even a bus depot where a Caltex Paramount is now (the one near the post office). Wondered why so many trunk bus routes ply Paramount Garden? History. And how many townships can boast of a largish park with a lake. There are only 3 lake parks in central PJ, and one of them is Taman Aman, which it shares with the residents of Section 22.

There was one notable landmark of a sordid nature, the Taiwan Pub which occupied a shoplot right at the Y junction between Jalan 20/7 and Jalan 21/12. It’s outer décor was flashy, it’s location prominent and we all know it’s a front for a brothel. It stood for almost 50 years, until it all but closed down a couple of years ago.

Paramount was designated as Section 20, while South East Asia Park (SEA Park) was given Section 21. Their commercial areas are adjoining at certain parts. In my map below I tried to outline the boundaries of the two sections, but because the borders between Paramount and SEA Park and between SEA Park and SS2 are so porous, my map is only my best guesstimate. Porous because some roads may seem straight, but half of the road maybe in Section 20 and the other in Section 21, and you may never pinpoint where the boundary is. It’s best to check with the land office on this one.

In its early days, like any newly developed commercial area, business was slow to come. In fact throughout the 20th century, neighbouring SS2 commercial districts and even the two-road Section 14 commercial district eclipsed Paramount-SEA Park in terms of prominence and business activity. Many shops seemed unoccupied and only a few eateries drew in a small crowd but fortunately, parking was plentiful.

Despite that, Paramount in particular captured a niche market of sorts. It is home to a variety of hardware shops specialising in piping, electrical products, lighting and other tradesman businesses. It is where plumbers, contractors and others come to get good cheap supplies. And to this day, many of these shops remain.

The two cinemas closed down in the mid-90s, and with that Paramount and SEA Park went through its gloomiest days. Paramount Cinema was converted into TOPS supermarket which is now Giant Supermarket. Although temporarily serving as a church for a couple of years, Ruby cinema remains abandoned. I am of the opinion that that land could be put to good use as a residential zone.

Petaling Jaya’s population is 70% Chinese. The Malays tend live in Kelana Jaya, and a small enclave in Section 14 while the rest of it is majority Chinese. While SS2 could be seen as a kind of modern Chinese town centre, other parts of PJ like Old Town, Paramount and SEA Park right in the geographic centre of PJ retain a more rustic charm. More authentic kopitiams than modern ones, if you get my drift.

In the late 1990s, the LRT line found its way through PJ and was built inexpensively on the electricity transmission line corridor. As luck has it, Paramount which borders this corridor, was given its own station, Taman Paramount although this was one of the stations where LRT ridership is at the lowest in PJ. It wasn't immediately apparent but, once the LRT services begun, commercial businesses in Paramount and SEA Park picked up.

Over the last decade, the once economic laggard of PJ, Paramount and SEA Park blossomed. David Koh was spot on about a gastronomic valley in the roads of Jalan 20/22, 20/16 and 20/13. It must have been Paramount’s reputation as being a Chinese food nexus, a centre for good cheap food, which spurred businessmen to open more restaurants. Now there are twice the number of restaurants in Paramount than there were in the mid-90s. Some are successful but others were not, and were forced to close shop. It seems the only criterion for continued success in the Paramount restaurant business is that the food must be tasty and delicious.

There were other changes too, the tenant mix in the commercial areas became more varied. A couple more banks opened up, and more modern amenities like hairstylists and bakeries were available, and even a couple of colleges. The Paramount LRT station sees more passengers through its turnstiles, and the Giant supermarket is thriving. New restaurants like dim sum shops and seafood restaurants all see customers waiting in line for a seat. But the downside of it is there is hardly any parking available anymore.

Finally I'm happy to report that Paramount and SEA Park have caught up with the hustle and bustle of the nearby SS2 and Section 14 commercial districts. For instance, Jalan 20/7 has a service lane that runs parallel to serve the shops. Originally, there was only one row of parallel parking lots but sometime in the late 2000s, the opposite road shoulder was converted to parking as well, so we now have 2 parallel rows. But it isn’t enough! People have started double parking on the main road, which only has one narrow lane in each direction. And we the actual residents of this area have to put up with constant jams when we visit our nearby shops.

How do you measure prosperity? Is it by the peeling paint or mouldy walls? Or is it by foot traffic or is it by the number of times you hear the 'ch’ng' sound of cash registers? David Koh was wrong to pass judgement by simply driving around and observing what he sees. I do not know what lies Paramount and SEA Park’s future, but I do know that things have never been brighter.

Pictures are available in the next post

Comment on SPAD's Draft Greater KL Public Transport Master Plan.

In November 2011, SPAD, the Land Public Transport Commission published their draft master plan for Klang Valley’s future of public transportation. Public transport consists of more than rail based infrastructure, but rail is the most interesting because it costs billions of dollars and is certifiably more efficient than busses or other road based transport. And once you build it there’s no going back.

However, judging by past decisions with the 2 LRT systems, all everyone should have a say. In their draft proposal there are 2 phases.

Phase 1: Network by 2020

Highlights include the completion of the Sungai Buloh – Kajang line, one half of the MRT circle line and a weird alignment of a North-South MRT line from Selayang and Kepong to Pandan.

The Sungai Buloh – Kajang line is much generally welcomed although with a few hiccups at Jalan Sultan and Bukit Bintang.

Excerpt from SPAD's Draft Greater KL/ Klang Valley Land Public Transport Master Plan.

The Circle line, the next MRT line to be announced, is a crucial link to link all radial lines entering KL city centre. Also it will ease traffic in the city centre’s interchange stations and link dense developments like Mont Kiara and upcoming mega projects like Bandar Malaysia and Matrade Centre. Lastly, the Circle line will take over the Ampang line’s Ampang spur from Miharja to Ampang station. It won’t make a perfect circle by 2020, as its name suggests. This line makes sense provided they link it up sensibly with existing lines.

The MRT 3 line is when things get funky. It is meant to service the entire Jalan Ipoh/Jalan Kepong corridor but there might be overlaps with the existing Komuter line which SPAD seems to have forgone. They need to really think about his one.

There is a planned freight relief line that links up Subang to Sungai Buloh and that passes close to the old Subang airport. Presumably it will allow more passenger capacity on the KL Sentral bottle neck stretch in central KL and make it safer too. They are alternatively thinking of completely bypassing Klang Valley, which can make the existing KTM rail corridors operate fully as an intra-urban rail network like the LRTs or MRTs, but this will of course cost a lot more money to build new lines from Seremban towards Klang and Klang towards Serendah. Worth spending?

Lastly, they want to extend the monorail to Mid Valley and southward bound towards Kuchai Lama commercial district. Is that worth the money? Should it link up all the way with another line and risk overloading the monorail line? Or should it even extend pass Mid Valley?

Phase 2: Network by 2030

There are two projects slated for completion according to the draft, the LRT 3 and the MRT Line 3’s extension towards Serdang and Putrajaya(really?). I find both these lines highly questionable.

Excerpt from SPAD's Draft Greater KL/ Klang Valley Land Public Transport Master Plan.

The LRT 3 line extends from the Kelana Jaya LRT station towards Klang. That are a lot of stations between Klang and KL. It was not too long ago that the Kelana Jaya line was overloaded before they bought all those new trains, and with the new extension in Subang Jaya, is SPAD out of its mind?

As for the MRT line, Serdang is the main point of interest, but the thing is Serdang is already serviced by the KTM Komuter. So SPAD has also lost hope in KTM? Putrajaya is still largely undeveloped and not as dense as Serdang. So why go there?

Outer Orbital Line

An orbital line is a line that caters for traffic that moves around in a circle instead of to and from the city centre. In the draft plan, they talked about the need for such a line through PJ. This has to do with the fact that the north south traffic on the LDP corridor is too heavy. Development along this corridor has quadrupled over the past decade and more is on the way.

They had planned for a bus rapid transit to serve the corridor, but without new infrastructure, there is absolutely no way the poor LDP can cope. But the planners are also hesitant to build along the LDP corridor because the area is built up. There isn’t enough space so much as to thread a needle.

But the need remains. The MRT line in Kota Damansara and LRT lines to Subang and Puchong are so long. A person from Puchong has to interchange near KL just to go to Kota Damansara. See the blue swath representing the corridor in question.

The LRT line from Kelana Jaya to Subang Jaya appears to be part of this corridor, and could handle the traffic. But a couple of missing links are needed; a link around Sunway, and a link from Kelana Jaya to the Kota Damansara line. Otherwise, people might not think it is worth the time and effort to interchange between the 3 radial lines. Building a Sunway link itself is justified, as the Sunway development has completely overwhelmed the local roads. (They are expanding Sunway Pyramid again)

And lastly, if they are going to build LRT 3 line to Klang, you cannot link it up at the Kelana Jaya line LRT line and overload it, so they might as well extend it to interchange with the MRT line because only that can handle the anticipated traffic.

Some links:
SPAD's Draft Plan

Klang Valley Rail Transit Map

KL Transit Map deserves its own post. I update frequently.

View KLTransitMap in a larger map

Rapid KL LRT Line Extensions to Subang Jaya and Puchong

Rapid KL had an open day in conjunction with MPSJ anniversary of some sort. Because it was not available online, i took photos of the entire route.

Ampang Line

Kelana Jaya Line

I drew out a map of rail transit in Klang Valley on Google Maps, centering it on Puchong.

Klang Valley Rail Transit Map

Klang Valley’s Rail Transport of the Future

Like many residents of the Klang Valley or Greater Kuala Lumpur, I've been eagerly anticipating what the future of our metro system beyond the two unintegrated LRT lines and the ever inadequate KTM Komuter. But good news is in the offing, as the goverment has announced extensions to the two LRT lines extending into Subang Jaya and Puchong. Also this year they've almost finalised the alignment of the Sungai Buloh - Kajang MRT line, one of two higher capacity metro lines planned. The other circle line around KL is to be announced middle of this year.

SO, for public interest, to give an overall picture, I've used Google Maps to map out the monorail line, the two LRT lines with the more or less finalised extension alignments, the KTM Komuter lines in black (limited to KL, PJ and whatever I can fit in that google map in a rectangle already covered by other) and the tentative Sungai Buloh - Kajang MRT line. The KTM Komuter lines go much further to thefar west towards Klang, north towards Kuala Kubu Baru and south to Seremban.


View KLTransitMap in a larger map

If you don't know already, the current metro system is not integrated; meaning that there is no way you can interchange with another line without buying another ticket. There's is a current project to intergrate the Kelana Jaya, Ampang and monorail lines, BUT he Public Land Transport Commision (SPAD) has no plans now or in the immediate future for the KTM Komuter to integrate with the other urban rail systems. That's a real pity because if you look at the map I labouriously drew out, KTM lines cover key populated areas that the new MRT lines do not.

Also, if you've never ridden on the KTM Komuter, now's not the time to start. I once tried taking a train from MId Valley KTM Komuter Station to KL Sentral, it took 45 minutes for an almost fully packed train to arrive despite electronic signages posting estimated arrival times of 30 minutes ago. Calling the service unreliable would be a compliment, hence many are eagerly waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel to come (that's a railway tunnel in this case), when more trains begin to be commissioned end of 2011.

KL has moved to the West

Examining the whole network of MRT and LRT extension lines, what you notice is that the economic centre of the Klang Valley or Greater Kuala Lumpur is slowly creeping west. Yes, the LRT lines will stretch to around 40km each and the first MRT line is over 50km. That is looong. At current speeds for the LRT, riding from end to end would take close to an hour and a half. Pity us. Yet by design, the centre of the whole network is around the KL city centre, because that's where all the interchanges are.

Case study: If I live in Pusat Bandar Puchong, that’s the area around IOI mall, and I want to go to say 1 Utama, one of Klang Valleys’s finest malls. I’ll either take the Ampang line way down south to the Putra Heights interchange, hop onto the Kelana Jaya Line, interchange with the future MRT circle line then I’m to interchange again on my final line, the Sungai Buloh – Kajang MRT line where the 1 Utama station is on. The alternative is to go east then north on the Ampang line, interchange to the future MRT Circle line, and then interchange SB-Kajang line once more. My feet get sore for riding so long.

Obviously, what I’m alluding to is that there needs to be a North South line over the west of Kuala Lumpur, right over Petaling Jaya, Subang or Puchong. Ideally, depending on how developed the southern corridor gets and how much money’s left in the government coffers(none), that line can be extended south east forming some kind of outer Klang Valley railway loop. Wishful thinking I know, but we should always strive for the ideal.

Now for a case of so close yet so far, do you see how the 2 LRT extensions seem to interchange at Putra Heights while making its way south on either side of the Klang river. The lines service USJ on the west and Puchong on the east. It’s good that the LRT services Puchong and USJ this far south but the two almost parallel makes the far away Putra Heights interchange a chore to get to. People who want to get to Summit USJ from IOI mall have to ride roughly 15 km, and that could be 30 minutes too long.

The Sunway Link

I have a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone solution though. Build a line linking an LRT station in north Subang Jaya to another in Bandar Puchong Jaya, whilst snaking its way through one of the densest townships in Klang Valley, Bandar Sunway. It doesn’t have to be LRT; it could be a monorail of high enough capacity.

That’s a people traffic gold mine right there, it’s also what Bandar Sunway residents have been clamouring for all these years. Three universities, a theme park, Sunway Pyramid, the regional mall to rival 1 Utama, 5 star hotels, condos, condos, condos and an industrial zone. They are about to open up a swanky South Quay district to the south of all that, and that means more condos and commercial areas. Even if an MRT line is built in a North South orientation, and if it doesn’t pass through Bandar Sunway, it would be a great loss for everyone, government, business and residents.


View The Sunway Link in a larger map

Anyway, as for alignment, maybe the monorail could start at the LRT station located on Jalan Jengka, fully integrate with it of course. Then following Jalan SS14/8 and 8, it will leap across the busy Jalan Kewajipan and land on Jalan Lagoon Selatan. The final alignment in Bandar Sunway would probably result from a metaphorical fist fight between Sunway Group led by its founder, Dr. Jeffrey Cheah and the SPAD. Maybe a loop around Sunway Lagoon? But eventually, would-be commuters will then ride south to cross the Klang River and roughly keeping parallel with the Damansara Puchong Expressway. Finally, this line will integrate with the Ampang Line station just north of IOI Mall.

Would something like this work? I sincerely hope so.