NPE2

Another Highway in the City

This month another big, elevated highway has been announced, running into the heart of Kuala Lumpur.

The NPE2 would run from Pantai Dalam to Jalan Istana via Jalan Syed Putra. 

But the city is already covered in grey spaghetti concrete highways.  Government ministers, planners and engineers stuck in the 1980's want to cover Malaysia in even more of it.

It takes a severe case of carbrain to see this image and decide what it needs is more roads.

Every new iteration of highway gets uglier and nastier looking with poor design details and jarring blocky angles.  Bad drainage and poor maintenance lead to staining which completes the look.

 

 Funny how just one or two cars are shown on these images, but in reality the roads will induce demand and fill up to the brim within a few years (which is what the business case demands).

What can be done to curb Malaysian developers' insatiable appetite for more elevated urban highways?  How many levels will be enough?  Is it because they can't build flying cars, they feel the need to take normal cars high into the sky on concrete monstrosities?

It's way past time to take things in a better direction.  Adding highway after highway just makes things worse in the long run.

Another Way for the City

There is another way and it's simple: build alternative infra and shift to moving people, not cars.

Scale back the roads in central KL, bring in a congestion charge.  Watch people shift to walking, cycling, buses, and metro.

Build tram lines at-grade.  It works for other cities, why not KL? In this case, build an at-grade tram line along Jalan Syed Putra and Old Klang Road.  We need an alternative vision.  Imagine the convenience of a tram line with regular stops all the way along Old Klang Road, with interchanges at Midvalley, Tun Sambanthan, and up to Pasar Seni. 

Concept for a tram line along Jalan Syed Putra and Old Klang Road.  No need for elevated infrastructure.

 

Malaysian contractor Gamuda is buying trams for Taipei.  Malaysian developer YTL is helping build a new railway station in the UK.  Why can't it be done in Malaysia?

The government spent billions on the River of Life project and now the plan is to dominate it with an elevated highway, destroying the amenity value of the river and undoing that investment.  The highway will pump out noise, fumes and particulates into the city's air. 

Spending billions on all these highways and road projects just locks KL into a future of car dependency.  Obviously a good thing for the toll highway guys...

Fake targets and ulterior motives 

The Malaysian government has targets of 40% public transport share by 2030 and 70% by 2040 for KL.  These are actual targets from the government.  Yet the Works Ministry, part of the same government, is approving urban highways, directly undermining the government target.  So what is the point of the target if they are just going to ignore it?  The government seriously needs to get the priorities in order.

The people behind this crazy American-style highway development need to be un-brainwashed and retrained so they can design and build balanced transport infrastructure for our cities, one that doesn't constantly prioritise cars and profit.

 

 

Angkasapuri

Angkasapuri KTM - cut off by roads, rivers and restricted land

There are some seriously unloved KTM stations in Malaysia, but Angkasapuri must be near the top of the list - terrible car-brained planning that prioritises a highway and cuts off access to the station from nearly all directions, with a river to the east with no car-free crossing.

To top it off, the one place it does lead to (the Ministry of Communications and RTM complex) is not for public access and does not allow connections through it, so for any destinations on the other side, people will need to take a long detour around.  Some may say that the station was specifically opened for the complex - if that is the case it's just another terrible planning decision.  Public transport stations need to have maximum connectivity to the surrounding area, and not be exclusive to a condo or government department.

Looking at the areas around the station, there is housing at the top of Old Klang Road with temples and some shop lots (restaurants/ commercial).  Just to the south of this are several big tower blocks (Tria, Gemilang Indah and Vivo).  Staying within a 750m radius of the station (10 mins walk) we also see some large residential towers and commercial buildings on the opposite side of Old Klang Road (e.g. Avara).  On the west side there is Taman Bukit Angkasa - again, lots of housing.

 

Angkasapuri KTM station (blue marker).  From left to right, running north-south: New Pantai Expressway, KTM port Klang line, Klang River, and Old Klang Road.  

So there is no shortage of housing and urban activity in close proximity to the station (and there is surely more on the way).  As is so often the case in Malaysia, the way the area has been planned and covered with roads makes it difficult and inconvenient to get to public transport without a car, increasing the need to use cars.  The vicious cycle continues.  This results in Angkasapuri station having the lowest ridership on the whole KTM Komuter network.

First photo: PPR Kampung Limau (foreground), River Park (background). Second photo: Tria condos.

Adjacent to the station there are two condos under construction - the huge River Park Bangsar South, and the smaller RIA Apartment.  These will have direct access to the KTM station when completed.  Predictably, during construction, the access to the station is partially blocked or not maintained, further discouraging public transport use.  Together with these developments,  new transport infrastructure is being built.  Can you guess what type? (More on that later.) 

 

Example of the condition of access routes to Angkasapuri KTM Station in October 2025

Rail connections

This KTM stop is on the route to Port Klang and Batu Caves.  For people going in either of those two directions the train obviously has the capability of being a very convenient mode of transport.  Seputeh Station is just 900m to the east, but on the Tanjung Malim/ Seremban line.  If people living near Seputeh Station wanted to head towards PJ, Klang or Batu Caves using the train they would need to ride it north to KL Sentral, change onto the Port Klang Line (or another metro line) and head out again.  This would add a lot of time given how slow and infrequent the train is - people are unlikely to find it feasible.  Much simpler and quicker if they could easily walk or cycle to Angkasapuri station and hop on their direct train (and vice versa to Seputeh Station).

  

The two lines on the Klang Valley KTM Komuter network. Perhaps one day Malaysian planning will allow trains to be routed to multiple destinations rather than the limited routes currently available.  

The potential capacity of these KTM Komuter lines is considerable, seen as part of KL's high frequency high volume urban metro system.  For this it needs the infrastructure, the trains, the stations, the information systems, and the maintenance. It needs people to work together to achieve this goal, which is still a long way off realisation.  

The fact is, urban rail is a much more efficient mode of transport than urban car. When a city gets as big as Kuala Lumpur/ Klang Valley efficiency becomes increasingly vital.  

 

 Trains vs cars - which moves more people?

The picture above could easily be Old Klang Road (OKR), although it's not from Malaysia.  OKR also has a railway roughly parallel to it, with three stations all within 600m of the road (Angkasapuri, Pantai Dalam, and Petaling).  Basically nobody is using them to get to OKR because the connections are just too poor.

Old Klang Road is famously congested with traffic and unpleasant for pedestrians and bicycle users.  It has become a 'stroad' as the authorities have sought to add as many lanes as physically possible, in the misguided notion that it will reduce traffic.  Obviously giving more space to cars and relegating people to broken pavements and steep overhead bridges just encourages more cars and more traffic.  A half-hearted attempt to implement bus lanes may have helped a little but it hasn't done much to encourage active travel - something Malaysians so desperately need (lower stress, healthier, more efficient etc etc).

Recent developments

There may be some green shoots appearing - for example the Klang River Festival project to create a riverside path along the banks of the Klang River adjacent to OKR.  This could provide a major boost to walking and cycling, as well as amenity value, if connected well with the destinations along the river corridor, and with access to public transport.  Some details of the proposals are available here, as well as a screenshot of the map below.  These proposals go a little way to addressing the area's wider need for walkability. Thinking about the bigger connectivity question, a strategic pedestrian crossing could make a big difference in the area.  The map below has been marked up with a possible crossing location to unlock the potential of Angkasapuri station. 

 

Map showing some proposed pathways along the Klang River.  Lime green markup showing possible location of pedestrian crossing.  (North direction towards the right.)

Solutions

Remember, to go 800m you do not need a car, a van or a bus.  Don't tell people to get in a van and problem solved.  This just encourages even more car-brained thinking and turns a blind eye to the accessibility issues that could be solved with better planning and design.

As usual it is a case of getting the basics right, which are so often overlooked by poor Malaysian planning and design. 

• Access routes and covered walkways             
• Bridges across railways and rivers
• Accessible stations (lifts, escalators, ramps)
• At-grade crossings of roads 
• Lighting and signage
• Co-ordinated public transport (e.g. buses and trains)
• Bicycle, scooter and motorbike parking 

The station currently doesn't even have ramps or lifts - accessibility is very poor.  To enter from the east side requires hiking over one pedestrian bridge, going through the barriers, then crossing over another pedestrian bridge to get back to the east side platform (ridiculous). 

 

Angkasapuri station sandwiched up against the New Pantai Expressway

To maximise the potential of our public transport systems they must be made convenient.  This means accessing them WITHOUT A CAR. That means having car-free access routes (something that seems to be anathema to Malaysian planners).  The map below shows more closely how this could be achieved.  Additionally, permissive pathways through Angkasapuri could be a quick and effective solution to boost connectivity to the west of the station. 

 

Zoomed in proposal for pedestrian crossing of the Klang River connecting into Angkasapuri station and beyond (new bridge in red colour).  (North direction upwards.)

Funding 

People may ask where would the money come from for these kinds of improvements.  The first thing to remember is that pedestrian bridges, paths and covered walkways are relatively cheap.  So it's not a lot of money.  

The KTM line itself is already there (and has been since before Malaysia was a country) and the Klang Valley Double Tracking project is underway (albeit painfully slowly - but that's another story).  As that project progresses, new funding should be made available to enhance the accessibility of KTM stations - lifts, fare gates on both sides of the station, information systems, signage, and general maintenance.  Also not that expensive compared to car infra.

Just look around and you will see so much car infrastructure in Malaysia - very very heavy and expensive.  Old Klang Road has been widened, barriers installed, car ramps tying in at various locations.  Again, this is expensive infra, costly to build and maintain.  So it's a question of priorities.  Car infra has been massively prioritised, with very high costs, over cheaper car-free infra.

This prioritisation is happening right now in 2025 at this location.  The new condo projects next to the KTM station will have car ramps binding them to surrounding highways.  In articles about the project, the developer boasts of 'investing' in connectivity: 

"A RM25 million infrastructure investment is currently underway to construct an exclusive road link to the Federal Highway and the New Pantai Expressway (NPE), scheduled to be completed in tandem with River Park" 

How much has been 'invested' in the pedestrian walkway?  And how much would a pedestrian bridge over the Klang River cost?  Less than RM25m, for sure.  These kinds of huge condo projects have significant impacts on the areas around them and there is very little being done by developers or local authorities (e.g. DBKL) to make sure sensible supporting infrastructure is implemented alongside them.

Condo plans show the new 'link bridge' that is being built (see columns under construction).  It's for cars.

 

Foundations being constructed alongside the Klang River apposite Vivo.  Could this be for a pedestrian bridge?  No.  It's 2025, it's Malaysia, and that means more car ramps for condos with dizzying amounts of parking.  

The pathways along the Klang River (aka extension of River of Life) may have their own funding source following the work that Klang River Festival and KongsiKL have been doing (can that channel some DBKL funding too?).  The new pedestrian bridge to the KTM station could be funded by a Railway Asset Core accessibility improvement fund, and/ or by the adjacent condos that are under development, along with DBKL.

 

It's 2025 and the best option local residents have of crossing the river is to walk on the highway bridge.

A livable future?

The good thing is it's not too late - installing a pedestrian bridge over the Klang is absolutely possible as is implementing a network of pedestrian/ cycling paths with some canopies.  In time, some of the road space can be easily converted into other uses - small linear parks, trees for shade, pathways, perhaps some space for warungs, cycle lanes, and at-grade pedestrian crossings.  The river corridor can be an active travel artery doubling up as a recreational space and refuge against the concrete jungle. 

In time, dedicated bus lanes should be extended along many major roads.  Even better, for Old Klang Road, build an at-grade tram line.  Reconfigure this choked stroad into something suitable for a productive, efficient artery in a livable city.  Give Old Klang Road a new lease of life and unlock the potential of KL's railways and rivers.

 

A glimpse at Old Klang Road's future?

 

Penang Sentral

Overall impressions

Oh dear, poor, poor Penang Sentral.  Where to start.

The design of this 'interchange' is shocking.   Leaving aside the hideous architecture, how does it function as an interchange?

Penang Sentral

The function of an interchange is to seamlessly and smoothly bring together different modes of transport at one nexus.  This should encompass as many modes as relevant and practical.

Butterworth is an obvious place, having a ferry port and a railway station already converging at the same point.  Bring together a bus terminal, a bicycle hub, and a vehicular drop off point, and the idea makes perfect sense. 

Unfortunately, the planners seemed to lose sight of this and decided to build a giant multistorey car park instead, adding on some awkward bus stops and a load of bizarre ramps.   (My advice to anyone planning urban transport in Malaysia: keep it on the ground.  Design out the need for ramps.  If you need lots of ramps, you are doing it wrong.)

Take the bicycle connection between the railway station and the ferry, for example.

In 2021, all but one of the big classic ferries were retired, now replaced by a small boat for foot passengers.  Bicycles and motorcycles are left with a modest 1 per hour.  OK, fine.  We can wait for the ferry.  Very cheap too. 

However, getting onto the ferry or to the railway station is a different story.   Up the ramp, round and round, down, through the toll booth, wait in the queue. 

Out of the port, through the barriers, up the spiral ramp, down another ramp, contra-flow along the main road (no decent pavement), into the station car park area, and then finally reaching the station. 

Time and time again Malaysia takes the long wiggly route to somewhere that is so near in a straight line.

The figure below shows a route you could take between the KTM station and ferry terminal, if you use contraflow. It's about 1.2km. Seriously. (If you don't use contraflow (i.e. cycling into traffic), it's way longer.)

Route between ferry terminal and KTM station for those using bicycle, scooter etc.  This could be solved easily by opening up a route near the toll booths directly into the railway station. 

Connections to the town 

A key issue with transit stations in Malaysia is their connections to the surrounding area - how accessible they are to local communities.  Penang Sentral is no different - in fact it is particularly poor.  The image below shows that there are significant residential and industrial areas within a 2km radius (25 minutes' walk or less, 10 minutes cycling/ scooting, or less).  If given convenient pathways to get to Penang Sentral, no doubt many would consider using the hub to catch their regional bus, ferry to Georgetown, local train, or perhaps long distance train.

Population areas within 2km of Penang Sentral.  

• The residential area to the south east, across the Prai river, is disconnected as there is no bridge.  (The Prai River Bridge is a major highway bridge - no entry for pedestrians.) 

• Residential/ kampung area directly to the east: good luck finding a decent cycle route, footpath or safe crossing points to get into Penang Sentral from here.

• Butterworth town to the north - you could try walking down Highway 1, which has a footbridge and some zig-zag pathways (not much shade).  It will probably take you a lot longer than it should.  Once you get to Penang Sentral, how do you actually get in?

A typical footpath on the way to the Butterworth railway station. 

It's a similar story trying to get directly into the railway station from the local areas.  Terrible paths, carparks in the way, entry roads jammed with traffic, major highway blocking access. 

During construction 

Like most construction projects in Malaysia, access during construction was relegated to the lowest priority. During the construction of Penang Sentral, it was not permitted to walk from the railway station to the ferry terminal (about 240m, or 3-4 minutes' walk). Pedestrians had to take a bus around the construction site, which inevitably took much longer. Perhaps not so bothersome to Malaysians, but it left plenty of foreign tourists disgruntled and confused.  Construction projects (especially ones near transport hubs) need to be planned to maintain adequate access throughout construction for active travel modes.  This is not difficult to do, and forms part of the standard practice for projects in other countries not so far away from Malaysia.  It does, however, need a change in mindset, together with enforcement from planning authorities and major clients. 

Barriers in the city

Let’s talk about permeability.   No, this is not about hairstyles.  It’s about the ability to travel through a medium, place or object. Say, a city.

Places tend towards permeability if given the chance. Yes, there are rivers, steep hills, and forests to contend with, but by and large, people find a way through.  This is a human phenomenon.  An animal phenomenon.  

The generations before us knew about permeability.   Just a few generations ago,  riding around on a bicycle was a primary means of transport, and this relied on the permeability of the town or district.   In KL that has mostly been swept up and away in the mass of tangled highways.  You don’t have to look far to find people who growing up didn’t think of using a bicycle as ‘cycling’ - it was just jalan jalan, and it was free and easy.

The modern city in Malaysia is becoming a ‘severed’ place rather than a permeable one.  Forces are at work making this happen, going against the grain.   It is usually the construction of a wall or a fence.   Why do we need these barriers?   Why do we need to sever one place from another?  The two main causes of the barriers in the Klang Valley are highways and fenced property.    

Highways are touted as providing connectivity, but do the sponsors and planners stop to consider that highways also bring severance?  They sever districts through the insertion of fences and other barriers coupled with heavy traffic thundering along in a near-continuous stream.  Not something easy to cross, to say the least.  This can have far-reaching consequences for an area, resulting in severed communities.   What once was a short walk now may be a long drive, with little or no alternative but to get on the highway.  Cycle around the Klang Valley and you will usually find your preferred route blocked by highways.  Some footbridges are provided - but not nearly enough.  They clearly haven’t been planned with active travel in mind.  Of course, with highways typically being toll roads, it is in the developers’ and operators’ interests to encourage car use and discourage active travel. 

Cycling is an incredibly flexible mode of transport - you can ride 5 minutes to the shop, go touring (maybe with the help of a train), invade a country, or take it off road, over the hills and far away.  There are so many options.  So a bicycle can be used in a shared space with pedestrians, on a motorcycle lane, on a road, on a gravel track, or, yes, even on a dedicated bicycle path.  Perhaps this is a curse, as well as a blessing.  Without a well defined need for bicycle-specific infrastructure, cycling routes get overlooked. 

What this all means is that we’ve ended up with areas in Greater KL that you can’t escape except by using a highway.    Easy, accessible routes can be worked into highway proposals for little extra cost, if the will is there. 

Modern private property developments in the Klang Valley tend to be relatively large scale. A common first step for a developer is to put a big fence around the new development site, thus reducing permeability.   Attitudes towards private property, land access rights, so called ‘security’, and various other aspects of the collective psyche can probably explain this to some extent.  There are simpler explanations too.  Perhaps the planner or developer doesn’t walk or cycle.  That would be perfectly normal nowadays in the Klang Valley.   If they never use active travel themselves, why would they think to cater for others who might?  Everybody knows that cars are the only way...  Education in planning and urban design can tackle this, together with planning policy:   mitigate severance caused by developments, maintain and enhance urban permeability. 

On the other side of the coin, the Klang Valley has many mature housing areas that are inherently permeable, with little lanes, alleys, parks and bridges.  Nowadays, many of these areas are fenced, like a compound.   People approvingly talk about their area being ‘gated and guarded’ - hideous terms better suited to a barbed wire dystopia.   Nothing says selamat datang like a 10-foot fence topped with razor wire.    

Welcome to the neighbourhood.

But where does this trend for fences come from?  There has been a history of fenced housing areas in Malaya for decades, particularly acute during the emergency years.  The British set up New Villages with perimeter fences to combat communist activity.  Did the residents decide they liked the fences?  Or did they just get used to it and as time went by, forgot that it could be different?  It is sad that people use the warped excuse of ‘security’ or ‘safety’ today (but that is a discussion for another time).

Let’s look at a few quick examples of severance caused by fences.

There is a road from TTDI, through Kampung Penchala and up to Desa Park City.  Well, there was once. It was a pleasant and convenient route on the bicycle, using a small lane along a babbling river.   Even better, the end of the road was a modal filter, blocking motorised traffic.  This made the road quiet and calm.  In 2021 the route was blocked by an uncompromising fence and barbed wire.  Some try to bypass the fence by going through the forest - a route unsuitable for most.  It looks like a typical case of the ‘one way in, one way out’ mentality.   With a little imagination and minimal budget, the route could be opened up to active travel, with all the benefits that would bring.

The developer is ParkCity Holdings, a subsidiary of Samling.  From Samling’s own website: “Samling Group and all its subsidiaries strongly believe in environmental protection and sustainable social-economic practices which caters to long-term business growth”. 

Just going to leave that there.

The road to Desa Park, now blocked.

There will surely be arguments for and against barriers in each situation, and in some rare cases a fence might be the least worst option.  But the point isn’t about one example, the point is that this is a trend and it’s happening everywhere.  Maybe permeability for active travel around the city just isn’t on anyone’s radar.  The people whom it currently affects the most are probably foreign workers, with little if any voice in these kinds of matters.  Maybe there is nobody representing these interests

A modest barrier in a typical PJ housing area.  This one is traversable, but not convenient.  There are plenty of other examples of high fences or mega gates.  No welcoming vibes allowed.

One of my favourites.  Bangsar.

It is not only private property that can cause massive severance - parks, campuses, and other areas in the city are also often fenced, cutting routes for active travel.

Let’s not forget that there are a few success stories, though.   Thumbs up to the golf course near the KL/PJ border that lets you cycle through it (but is it supposed to be a public road anyway..?).

There are good arguments for preventing motorised traffic in certain areas, but do these same arguments hold up against active travel?  That’s where the modal filter steps in. Some housing areas deploy these filters to great effect, blocking cars, and sometimes motorbikes, but remaining open to walking, jogging, or cycling.  There are plenty of examples of this kind of filter around KL, so it’s not something new.  What might be new is integrating it into a transport strategy.

While this discussion has singled out highways and fences as the causes of severance, there are other culprits lurking about in the shadows.  Technology has brought differences in the way the city is planned and constructed.  For example, modern retaining walls can be made much higher more easily than they could a century ago.   Where little terraces would have once been the norm, six metre tall concrete retaining walls now tower around us.  Few of us would consider scaling a wall like that as part of our daily commute, let alone doing it carrying a bicycle. Let’s remember: it is our choice how we implement technology.

 

A final thought - about intuition, and the severing of it.  Intuitively, how to get from A to B?  If you start at A, head in the direction of B mah?  No.  Wrong!  Not in the Klang Valley.  More likely, head in the opposite direction.  This could be different. For a city with a high degree of permeability, if you head towards B, by and large, you will end up at B.  Navigating without a sense of direction is a bizarre concept to me, but something increasingly normal to KLites.  Maybe technology is solving the problem - just got to turn brain off, turn Waze on.  But the tortuous routes we now take add on the miles, add on the minutes, add on the pollution, and add on the stress. 

___

OK, so the city has a problem with permeability, and it’s been heading in the wrong direction for a while.  But there are little positives here and there - modal filters, bicycle maps, footbridges, and private roads open to active travel.  Things that are valued by people.  Let’s build on these things, raise awareness and change minds.  There is a growing group of bicycle users who can spread the word and mobilise.  Who knows, with a few turns of the pedal, we might just get somewhere.