Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) president Voon Lee Shan suggested having contraflow lanes like the many highways in Kuala Lumpur such as MEX Highway and Cheras Highway, to ease congested lanes at peak hours.

“For example, from 5am to10am, a contraflow lane has to be opened at the Samarahan-bound side to ease commuters going to Kuching to work. During the operation of contraflow traffic police must be stationed there to oversee the process.

“This has been proven to be effective and I believe this will only affect the upgrading work to a minimum,” he said in a statement today.

He said Kuching was now facing a development boom and problems such as this would surely arise every now and then. The relevant authorities are urged to be more creative in providing solutions to quickly tackle problems the people are facing.

He said the Kuching-Kota Samarahan Expressway has become notoriously congested, which has severely impacted the productivity and quality of living of those who live in Kota Samarahan and Kuching City.

He added that the upgrading of the expressway had been going on for many years, but had not been completed.

“It is not new that Kota Samarahan is suffering traffic congestions, and if I am not mistaken, contemplation was proposed that flyovers were to be constructed instead of traffic lights.

“Given the growing population of Kota Samarahan and the rapid pace of development there, flyovers should be the more plausible go-to long term solution,” he said in the statement.

“Even this traffic light upgrading project requires a rescue contractor to salvage the project.”

It is observed that this rescue contractor is adopting ineffective measures to salvage the project as no reasonable contractors carrying out public works who understand and properly study the magnitude of congestion that Samarahan and Kuching people are facing would ever think of carrying out construction work during daytime.

“Hence, what we see is this torturing traffic congestion which the people have to experience every day.

“I am by no means a traffic expert, but I can tell that the latest Public Works Department (JKR) measures as stated in their press statement can hardly help. We still see people suffering because of traffic jams.”