Riviera City, Brickfields (parking development)

Riveria City, Brickfields

There's a new development opening soon in Brickfields. DBKL and the developer have somehow conspired together to burden the city with another car-centric project, enabling excessive use of cars in a downtown location.

Labelled a 'Transit Orientated Development', the location is 100m away from the monorail and 300m away from Malaysia's biggest transport hub, KL Sentral. 

First eleven levels dedicated to cars.

Car-brained policies

Yet, car-brained policies have produced ELEVEN levels of parking beneath the residential tower and adjacent to it.

In what almost seems like a parody, the monorail line goes THROUGH the parking block.  Public transport is obviously getting in the way of all the important parking space so they need to build around it. 

All-important parking space wrapping around the monorail.  Is this the best use of space for our capital city?

DBKL, when will you realise that your policies are enabling car traffic, even at so-called Transit Orientated Developments?   You have a policy to 'solve traffic' by 2030 but at the same time you are pushing for insane amounts of parking space to be dumped right in the city.

Missed opportunity

On top of this, the development is right next to what could be a cycle superhighway, the River of Life (South West Dedicated Bicycle Highway), which feeds into the heart of KL and also to Midvalley and on to PJ.  With its traffic-free location alongside the river, this could provide an ideal route for commuters, with a bit of joined-up thinking. 

Why not put a bicycle parking garage at the foot of the building, directly accessing the River of Life?  Make it covered, secure, and free for residents.

Even better, sort out the missing link in front of the new development and the monorail depot.  With a bit of creativity, a seamless bike route could be implemented to make bike journeys quicker, safer and smoother.

Possible solution for missing-link River of Life pathway to help prioritize walking and cycling over car traffic.

Instead, the bicycle route is blocked by the development, a new road bridge, and the monorail depot.

The route continuing past the development, and the new bridge across the river, designed for cars (right side).

End of the line.  RoL route gated off at the monorail depot.

Local inspiration

People say look to Singapore to learn about people-centric developments for the city, and yes there are some good examples there, but there are other examples much closer to home. A short distance away in Kampung Attap is Sam Mansion.  

Sam Mansion.  No elevated parking.

This has 11 levels of homes with NO PARKING BLOCKS, just a small parking yard next to the building (and it's not even full!).  

Small parking area.  The rest of the space is for people.

DBKL, there needs to be a serious re-think of these insane parking minimums that end up enabling traffic in downtown areas, make Malaysians unhealthy (with the highest obesity rate in S E Asia) and drive up the cost of housing.  There are great examples from the past and from around the world that urban planners, policy makers and other stakeholders can look to for inspiration.  

Mall bicycle parking

Recently, there have been reports of bicycles being turned away from parking in convenient places near Pavilion Mall Bukit Jalil.  

How common is this?

What are the different malls' policies on bicycle parking, and for that matter, on sustainable transport related to their developments?

Some malls do have bicycle parking in convenient places near their mall entrances (e.g. MyTown, Sunway Putra mall).  So for those that have battled all the other inconveniences to ride their bike to the mall, at least they can park.   Good characteristics are:

• Safe
• Close to mall entrance/ convenient
• Covered (ideally)
• Easy to lock bike to.

It's not really that difficult for malls to do this.  In fact, it's an easy win for mall owners and operators to show they are thinking about a diversity of ways people get around.  The malls might even understand their responsibility towards accessibility, pollution, congestion, noise etc. etc. in their area.

Sometimes, such as in MRT stations, motorbikes can be seen crowding the bicycle parking area, making it difficult to park.  Malls usually don't have this problem as there is a security presence who can deal with this. 

At Pavilion Bukit Jalil, the security seems to have been briefed by the mall management to be hostile to bicycles.  Same goes for Beam scooters.  Security has been seen directing Beam riders away from the mall parking and onto the public roads outside the mall boundary.  Why not have a Beam parking area at the mall?  If someone has used a scooter, it has probably saved one car journey.  

Motorcycles are also banished from the property at Pavilion Bukit Jalil, so they end up blocking the walking path for others.

Interestingly, anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that expensive-looking bikes get turned away less often than cheap, tatty looking bikes.  Is this some kind of deeply-embedded, possibly subconscious bias, perhaps fueled by the mall's attempt to project a 'premium' or fancy image?

As one of the big-name malls in the Klang Valley, Pavilion can play a role in how the urban environment operates around its malls.  Does the leadership at Pavilion feel a responsibility towards the city that makes them rich?  Or do they purely think about profit, and just pay lip-service to sustainability and CSR. 

From the Pavilion website:

Pavilion KL leads sustainable practices, ensuring a vibrant future while enriching communities and preserving the environment for generations.

Their latest article is about supercharging your Tesla.  How inclusive.   (How car-brained.)  

So, while there are still some malls that deny convenient bicycle parking, let's give a thumbs up to those that have made an effort, and call on the big malls to do better and live up to their words.