SMART Parking...woops SMART Tunnel Toll Motorway

Well this morning being a Monday, I thought I would forgo the normal freeway traffic congestion that even makes three of our traffic policeman scratch their heads on how to resolve the mess for the SMART tolled motorway. Big mistake! Like I said before the motorway that was supposed to relieve traffic congestion at the main Southern Gateway to the city centre(their words) has itself become a contributing to the congestion within the city. The supposedly reduction of travel time from ten to fifteen minutes to just four minutes has now become a half hour affair instead. So can we claim for false advertising now as even after good money for the toll in the hopes of achieving congestion free traffic, we are still served more of the same traffic jam similar if we take the toll free routes into the city? How can you promise congestion free traffic when cars are crawling slowly within your traffic? Do you think by making traffic announcements through the car radio systems is a sufficient solution to warn your customers, who has no choice to divert into other routes once they are in the tunnel? And that is if they are tuned to the limited numbers of radio stations broadcasted within the tunnel, or otherwise they would miss the traffic broadcasts. So how can you relieve congestion for motorists who use the tunnel motorway in the hopes of escaping the jam on the routes just beside the Smart Entry points.

Well what can you say about people's disappointment once they have entered the toll lanes when see that the entrance itself is jam-packed with cars unable to smoothly enter the tunnel. It does make a mockery of the traffic signs saying the speed limit is 60 kilometres per hour and camera enforcement is in place. How can one achieve the speed limit when you are crawling along at not even 10 kilometres per hour. The wonder is that the crawl is due to the occurence of a three car fender bender, even at such low speed. Hmm makes you think what will happen if a high speed crash occured within the tunnel, a full traffic meltdown perhaps all over the city. Anyway even after you pass the crash site, you still face the congestion due to traffic snarl to exit onto Jalan Tun Razak. Well if you are lucky like I was today, your waiting time was greatly reduced because there was a senior policeman controlling traffic at the exit of Royal Selangor Golf Club underpass, thus you could exit the tunnel in a reasonable progression as he has a good feel of traffic flow direction. But this is not a permanent affair, and I believe the policeman had just arrived to assume the traffic control duties, as before that the traffic flow was still a stop and go affair. So the people in authority, please ensure you have a good traffic police officer on duty there, and it would go a long way in alleviating the traffic jam that we commuters has to suffer everyday. And that would be a blessing indeed.