Proposed KIDEX hghway briefing in Bandar Kinrara

The KIDEX roadshow finally arrived in Bandar Kinrara.

Last Saturday morning (29th, March 2014) representatives from KIDEX together with MPSJ, and Kinrara assemblyman Ng Sze Han were present at Bandar Kinrara BK2 community hall to brief the residents about the upcoming project KIDEX, or Kinrara-Damansara Expressway.
 

Residents attending the briefing at BK2 hall

To cut a long story short, these are what the residents in Bandar Kinrara were briefed during the meeting.

1. The highway will be 14.9km in length starting from NKVE, and ends at Bukit Jalil Highway next to Bandar Kinrara Giant supermarket. There will be two toll plazas along the highway with toll rate to be determined later.

KIDEX highway layout

 2. The whole length of the highway will be completely elevated with a single pier "T" shape concrete structure. Height of the structures varies from 8m to 16m. In other words, KIDEX highway will be built on top of existing roads. None of the existing roads will be taken away and made into tolled roads like LDP highway.

Section view of the elevated highway

3. Some of the private properties will be acquired by KIDEX to accommodate the construction of the highway. However, it will only be about 10% of what was originally reported, as KIDEX will only acquire land under section 8 act, which covers a lot less land than initially fear by residents staying adjacent to the proposed highway. Most of the acquired land will be near the interchange as the ramps that need more space will encroach further into the private properties.

Land acquired based on section 8 act, not section 4

4. Closer to our area, KIDEX will cross KESAS highway, runs on top of Jalan TK 2/7, cut across army camp to Jalan Kinrara 1, and ends at Jalan Kinrara 6 near Giant supermarket (based on the map provided in the briefing).

Approximate route of  KIDEX highway in Bandar Kinrara

In the future, there is also another SKIP (Serdang-Kinrara-Putrajaya) highway in the pipeline that is supposed to join to KIDEX highway at Jalan Kinrara 6, as reported here way back in year 2011.

The briefing ends with a Q and A session. Some of the concerns that residents have:

Q: Is my property going to be acquired?
A: It is not finalized yet at this moment

Q: Will the noise level be too much?
A: There will be sound barrier wall to reduce the noise to acceptable level

Q: Any EIA or traffic study reports available for public viewing?
A: No. The documents are considered "classified". It can only be released to public with government approval. 

Q: Can the highway be toll free?
A: This is not up the KIDEX representative to decide, who are just a concessionaire taking on the project. The concessionaire needs to collect toll to recuperate their investment.

There were also some questions raised that were not answered immediately.

Kinrara assemblyman Ng Sze Han raised the question why there is no diamond interchange at Bukit Jalil Highway and KESAS highway. 

For example, from KIDEX motorists can exit to Bukit Jalil towards Kuala Lumpur direction and not Sunway direction. Similarly, motorists coming from Kuala Lumpur on Bukit Jalil Highway will not be able to get on KIDEX. 

The questionable Bukit Jalil highway interchange

Artist's aerial view impression of Bukit Jalil highway interchange

Ng Sze Han was also concerned why no EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) and traffic study reports were made available for the public. There should be transparency to allow the public to fully understand the impact KIDEX highway will bring to the affected areas.

Many residents are also worried that instead of easing traffic, KIDEX will be like LDP, bringing more traffic jam to our area. 

One resident even suggested KIDEX should end at KESAS, which is a proper highway that might be able to handle the additional traffic coming to our area.

Overall the response from residents had been lukewarm at best, uncertain what the highway will bring to the residents of Bandar Kinrara in the future.

So is KIDEX highway a sure thing?

Will it ease traffic as promised?

No one can answer that.

However, one thing is for sure.

Anyone staying in Bandar Kinrara driving to work daily knows how painful it is to deal with the rush hour traffic at Bukit Jalil highway.

It is unlikely KIDEX highway will change that for the better.

KIDEX highway

As reported back in August 2011 in this blog, Kinrara centre of it all, one of the highways highlighted, KIDEX highway, linking Kinrara with Damansara is gaining a lot of attention in the news recently.

According to The Edge (Oct, 24th 2013), the highway will be 13.5km long starting from NKVE in damansara, passing by several housing areas before reaching BK1 and BK2, joining to Bukit Jalil Highway, and ends in BK 6.

Proposed KIDEX highway

(KIDEX news Facebook page)

The map below shows roughly how the highway will cut through Bandar Kinrara at BK1 and BK2, joins to Bukit Jalil Highway and finally ends just slightly pass Giant supermarket.

The probable route of KIDEX highway at Bandar Kinrarra

There is also rumor that the lands belonging to more than three thousand house owners will be affected by the construction of this highway, including those in Kinrara area.

Possible acquisition of land affected by KIDEX highway

Partial list of houses that may be affected

The full document showing all the plots that may be affected can be viewed here (114 pages).

It is probably too early to guess what will happen to these plots. However, if things were done like it was in the past, by the time the land owners found out the project is approved, they may have already lost their homes.

Don't forget that there is also a SKIP highway (Serdang-Kinrara-Putrajaya) in the pipeline that will probably be the extension of  KIDEX highway at BK6 going towards Serdang and Putrajaya.

There is no telling what will happen in the future if all these projects are materialized.

Bandar Kinrara may get better access to other areas with all the new highways.

On the other hand, Bukit Jalil Highway may become the biggest parking lot, with stand still traffic at all times, due to all the traffic converging at the same point.

Biggest parking lot in Malaysia?

(Find latest KIDEX highway news here) 

Updated 31st, March 2014

Kinrara centre of it all

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to all our muslim friends and happy holidays to all.

In the Star paper today, Kinrara will be seeing some major changes in the near future.

Coming our way will be a Serdang-Kinrara-Putrajaya highway (SKIP). 

According to the report the construction is supposed to start end of next year and expected to finish in 2016.

The new Serdang-Kinrara-Putrajaya highway

From the map I can see that the highway will start someway next to Giant supermarket in BK4, and heads towards Serdang direction. It will then split into two at the middle, with one heading towards Putrajaya while the other towards Sri Kembangan.

Although there are not much details yet, I imagine they will upgrade the road in front of  Kinrara golf course to make it part of the highway, then eventually joining back to Bukit Jalil highway somewhere near Giant supermarket in BK4.

With that highway, there are certainly a few new ramps and road intersections at our area. Is that one of the reasons affecting the LRT alignment that Prasarana is not telling us? It could be.

It is also funny the report mention the new highway will help to ease the congestion on LDP in front of IOI mall. How is that so I have no idea when the highway isn't linked anyway close to IOI mall at all.

What will happen for sure is, with the new LRT line and highway in the future, all at the Bukit Jalil highway area, Bandar Kinrara will see some of the heaviest traffic congestions in the Klang Valley. I wonder we will be able to move around anymore.

Major highways should be designed to join other major highways (for example North-South-Highway to Kesas, Kesas to North-Klang-Valley expressway, etc) in order not to have bottlenecks. By joining the new highway to the smaller roads in our area is a traffic congestion disaster waiting to happen.

And that's not all. There will be yet another Kinrara-Damansara highway linking our area to Pusat Bandar Damansara in the pipe line according to the report. I have no idea where that highway will join to.

Meanwhile, we are still waiting for a reply on our LRT problems. With all the festive holidays, it could be a while.

Meeting MPSJ didn't get us anywhere, but there is a silver lining.

 Don't wait, sign your online petition here now!

To cut a long story short, we are back to square one again after four months of back and forth discusssion with Prasarana.

Meeting with MPSJ and Prasarana

Even though the meeting was held during a work day, many BK 3 folks felt necessary to show up and support our cause for the good of BK 3 community. Fifty-five BK 3 residents showed up at the meeting last Wednesday morning. The turn out was just unbelievable.

BK 3 residents signing in.

BK 3 residents at the briefing

Besides that, the briefing by Prasarana in MPSJ office was a let down. They didn't bring anything new to the table. Everything was just the same like when it was started.

Encik Yunos Khashid, Pengarah, Bahagian Perancangan Bandar MPSJ

Briefing from Prasarana

To summarize the whole meeting:

1) No, the track can not be relocated away from the "green lung"

2) No, station no. 5 remains where it is.

Don't wait, sign your online petition here now!

This is the message Prasarana was telling us after four months of their study, with input from their consultants. 

In other words nothing can be done.

It is our feeling the whole meeting was put together in a very rush manner with not enough facts to back up their points. Things just weren't explained to us in a satisfactory manner.

When BK 3 residents asked who decided station no. 5 has to be in BK 3, no one could give us an answer.

No explanation was given on the traffic study as well. Prasarana just mention this is a drop and ride station, without any parking area provided. 

There was no traffic studies whatsoever on what impact the station will bring to the surrounding area.

Prasarana even presented us an artist's impression of how the station and track will look like at our green lung area (see below). It is not pretty.

Artist's impression of station no. 5 and track at green lung

Don't wait, sign your online petition here now!

 
While our government often spend millions and millions of ringgit in building white elephant projects, they just couldn't allocate more fund to restudy, relocate and rebuild the ramp to BK 5 area so that the LRT track can be at the centre of highway? 

With station no. 4 just a stone's throw away, why can't station no. 5 be relocated or canceled all together?

In the long run, that is the best solution with the least impact to the lives of the residents around our area.

So where is the silver lining?

With all the bureacracy our system has, we believe this is just one of the stages we have to go through. Quite simply put, neither Prasarana nor MPSJ are in a position to make the decision on our demands.

Therefore, MPSJ suggested we present a memorandum about LRT station no. 5 and track at green lung issue for  them to be discussed at the next Majlis Tindakan Ekonomi Selangor (MTES) meeting.

In other words, the Selangor government will be making the final decision. We are moving this thing higher up. That is the silver lining.

It is getting closer and closer to the end. We have waited for four months and will certainly continue to fight for the future of BK 3 community.  

Your support has become more crucial than ever. We are still collecting as many signatures as we can. Please continue to provide us as much support as you can.

Be ready for the next meeting with the Selangor government. We will need more residents to be there to make our case stronger.

Help spread the news. It is not over yet but getting tougher.

Don't wait, sign your online petition here now!

It is the little things that count.

BK 3 is a considerable low density residential area with simple amenities. Life is peaceful and quiet around here.

We are blessed to have a large playground with open green area that has a football field and a basketball court. For a small housing like ours, I must say our green area size is the envy of many others.

Large green area and playground

In the morning we can see people jogging and walking at the track around the park, or groups doing their exercises.

There are even more people in the evening, either playing a game of football or basketball. There are also kids playing at the playground and youngsters riding bicycles at the track. It is full of life.

Football field

BK 3 also connects easily to other areas. From Bukit Jalil highway we can get to KL, Sunway, IOI, Kesas highway and Shah Alam. The other direction in housing roads we can get to Jalan Puchong , Old Klang road and then PJ easily.

Unfortunately, no housing is perfect. Ours have some shortcomings as well.

There are only two entry-and-exit points for BK 3. One to Bukit Jalil highway and the other via Jalan Kinrara 4 to Jalan Puchong. Although we can get to other places easily, we must use either of this points.

BK 3 with two entry-and-exit points

That becomes a problem during morning rush hours, when parents are sending their kids to school, and residents going off to work. Two entry-and-exit points are just not enough for our housing.

In addition, with the newly open Kesas highway access road at Kinrara interchage to Old Klang Road, the outside traffic going through BK 3 and Jalan Kinrara 4 leading up to that access has also increased tremendously, making getting out of BK 3 more unbearable at times.

Traffic in the morning

On top of that roadside parking is also a big concern for our residents. With mostly landed properties, BK 3 does however has a few apartment blocks. We all know very well no apartment will ever have enough parking spaces for their residents. The apartment residents have no choice but to park their cars outside of their compound.

Road side parking

Jalan BK 3/7 facing Kasturi apartment in particular has this big parking problem. Being a very narrow street, with cars parking at both sides of the road, it can only allow one car to pass at anytime. This makes driving on that road a test of patience for most of the drivers.

Two way street blocked by parked cars

We must bear in mind that the future LRT station no. 5 is not only catered to the residents of BK 3. Anyone from nearby housings like Puchong Jaya, Taman Kinrara and Taman Bukit Kuchai for example will want to use the station as well.   

The only way they can reach the station is driving into BK 3. 
 

Morning traffic

While some of outsiders will pass by and drop off or pick up their family members, there are others who will just take advantage of the FREE parking at our road side.

Now imagine for a second our roads all jammed up with the additional traffic, and our roadside full of outsiders' cars. This is not how a residential housing should look like.

Besides traffic and parking, there is also a concern of noise pollution created by the new LRT trains.

It is not as quiet as you think.

If the new LRT tracks and station no. 5 are at our green lung area, residents who stay a few rows away can probably still hear the squeaking sound when the train handles the curves, breaking or starting off from a station.

SPNB will want you to believe the modern LRT is very quiet, but reality tells us otherwise.

Don't forget LRT runs from early morning until late hours, weekdays  and also on weekends.  So there will always be traffic coming in and out, cars parked in front of our houses, and squeaking sound most times of the day, everyday of the week.

If that is the case, all the little things we always enjoy and take granted for in BK 3 area, will be gone forever.