Kota Kinabalu: Three more flyovers will be built to help reduce traffic congestion plaguing three road junctions in the city at Bukit Padang, Inanam and Jalan Lintas-Penampang, respectively.Public Works Department (PWD) Director Datuk John Anthony said inefficiency of the traffic lights system in the city is among the main causes of traffic jams.
"All traffic will merge at junctions. So coupled with an inefficient traffic management system, the whole road system suffers major congestion as a consequence.
"Particularly, we are looking at three junctions, namely the junction at Batu 5 Inanam, the junction in Bukit Padang and the Jalan Lintas-Penampang junction.
"Therefore, an immediate solution to these problems would be to construct flyovers like the ones in Kepayan near the airport and Karamunsing," he said during the PWD Road Day press conference, Monday.
Anthony also stated that it is high time that some roads in the urban areas be upgraded since good roads and road system can also be considered as the key economic enabler of the State.
"Infrastructure development increases the capacity of a developing country in improving trade, employment, economic development and quality of life of the people," he said.
However, he said, it is the responsibility of road users to use the infrastructure responsibly by adhering to the rules and specifications.
"For example, driving a 5-tonne truck on a road built for a maximum 3-tonne vehicle would naturally damage the road. This overloading is unfortunately very common in the State, which is why it is one of the six topics for dialogue during the PWD Road Day," he said.
The six dialogue topics to be discussed would be Road Safety on Temporary Workzone, Wayleave Management, Material for Road Construction, Traffic Congestion Problem in Urban Areas, Best Practice of Road Planning, design, construction and maintenance and Overloading on PWD Road Network.
Among those invited to take part in the dialogues are road planners, consultants, contractors, road material suppliers, developers like Shareda, road users like members of the East Malaysia Planters Association (EMPA), government agencies and interested members of the public.
"We want to come up with agreed line of actions to address all the problems at the root of it because unfortunately, some of them actually are the cause of the problems," said Anthony.
The inaugural PWD Road Day, the brainchild of the director himself, will be officially held on Oct 22 and 23 followed by exhibition day from Oct 24 to 26 at the PWD headquarters.
"The PWD Road Day is an auspicious day created to mark the concerted efforts contributed by all relevant groups or individuals in making our road transport system in the State an efficient, safe and consistent with the prevailing government policies and law governing the usage of roads and bridges.
"The objective is to reach out to the public to disseminate the importance of preserving and safe usage of our roads as well as to inculcate a corporate culture that caring for our road is the social obligation of all members of the department," he said.
Among the activities would be presentation of video clips regarding road usage, machinery and equipment used during road construction exhibit and "Road Safety Campaign" for children.
About 1,000 participants and visitors are expected to come to the events.
