Tg Aru project must factor the traffic congestion

Published on: Sunday, August 18, 2019

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I went to Shangrila Hotel in Tanjung Aru for an afternoon major event after long lapse of not being there for some years.

The event was about the most promising industry on electric cars in China. It was well attended and shot over an extra hour to end at 6pm.

As soon as I came out on the Kinabalu wing lobby, the rain came and soon the narrow single outlet road of Star was jammed up.

I had to endure two discomfort scenarios, namely the very long wait over one hour for my Grabcar and the smokers at the waiting ground.

After my Grabcar came, I still had to queue up for the outlet to clear up.

Why was there a long queue or jam of vehicles? My Grabcar’s driver enlightened me that many people, including tourists, came to view the wonderful sunset but such trips were aborted when they arrived at the Tanjung Aru First and Second beach and so the narrow and small roads were jammed up. My driver told me he had been caught at least three times in such queues at sunset hours.

I was further irritated by my very impatient wife.

So I wonder whether the authorities would do something to mitigate such traffic congestion which gives very bad image to Star, especially those going to the airport. Can we just leave it to fate?

I fear if TAED project proceeds thousands more would jam up the area if not planned by taking this into account.

To me there is a special message to relate.

If the said event ended at 5pm, there would not be jam. If the rain did not fall at 6pm, there would not be such congestion.

So the message is that KK is always having very bad jams. A friend in the local group told me the Chinese people want to avoid the city for the venue. So obvious Star would not have congestion both in and out. So you can now understand the great inevitable frustration after the great event.

The FOC event was indeed very great as the visitors from China were all billionaires trying to introduce Sabah their new found new technology business. In the event, we were told of the trillions and trillions of revenue in the shortest possible time.

So after the bad congestion, what would be in the minds of the visiting young billionaires?

My only wish now is that Sabah would take advantage of the good links and networking in this new technology to bring great prosperity to Sabah in a time when many have lost hope.

Joshua Y C Kong