SEPT 7 — The Say No to DASH (Damansara) Group refers to two recent news update reported by various media with regards to the proposed Damansara-Shah Alam Highway (DASH) and the approved East Klang Valley Expressway (EKVE).
Recently, some media highlighted a memorandum sent in to the Selangor Government by a newly mooted group called Say Yes to DASH which comprises of residents from Shah Alam supported by the project proponent of DASH i.e. Prolintas, listing out the reasons DASH is needed by them.
In this regard, the Say No to DASH (Damansara) Group emphatise with the Shah Alam and Puncak Alam folks’ concerns over the traffic congestion along Persiaran Mokhtar Dahari, as a sole link to three exisiting highways that they rely on for intra city commuting — Guthrie, Elite and the NKVE Highway. In fact, this is in line with our stand that we have no objections whatsoever to the construction of DASH in Shah Alam, as we at SNTD are only opposing to the construction of DASH in the last segment of the highway via Damansara Perdana.
However, we would like to emphasise that the controversial DASH issue is actually not an issue of majority or minority resident groups but about the government making the right decision.
We maintain our stand that the Damansara segment of DASH cannot be built in the highly densed and populated Damansara Perdana and Mutiara Damansara neighbourhoods.
With regards to EKVE, we also emphatise with our friends from Bukit Antarabangsa objecting the highway as the DASH’s Traffic Impact Assessment (TIA) (in addition to the Environmental Impact Assessment) is similarly flawed in so many areas of assessment.
In fact, the DASH TIA:
1) Failed to identify the local development in townships like Damansara Perdana;
2) Failed to use the latest traffic growth forecasts and local township plans;
3) Failed to cover the impact towards schools, places of worships and several other projects that have been constructed since the studies were done;
4) Failed to perform a road safety audit considering the proposed DASH alignment runs as close as 11 metres away from the nearest residential building in a township with no other access road other than Jalan PJU8/1;
5) Failed to show that DASH benefits to the local townships of Damansara Perdana and Mutiara Damansara in the long term;
6) Failed to address real traffic issues faced by Shah Alam residents — who mainly grouse about the traffic congestion on Persiaran Moktar Dahari as they have no access to public transport infrastructure when in truth, NOTHING in the DASH TIA makes mention to mitigate the traffic situation for these residents.
In fact, if at all, statements and comments made by the Shah Alam folks are evident that highways are actually not a viable long term solution, considering they already have access to Guthrie, Elite and NKVE but yet, it does not solve seem to solve their traffic congestion problems. With the inevitable increase in road traffic volume due to the developments in Shah Alam and housing developers who sell properties based on promises of ill-planned proposed highway access, the truth is - a much broader and sustainable solution aside from highways is required to continuously ease local traffic congestions caused by bottle necks. If there is anything to learn from the existing highways, DASH will suffer the same fate once past the projected capacity as the TIA does not address a viable continuous improvement plan but merely serve as a short-term solution.
If the concerns of the Shah Alam folks were to be addressed in the long term, then what is truly needed to ease their congestion is to ensure that all the housing developments in Shah Alam and Puncak Alam have access to public transport infrastructure like LRT and MRT, or even BRT — which is now glaringly lacking — unlike Mutiara Damansara and Damansara Perdana which is now linked to the current MRT in construction and soon to be LRT 3 to be constructed.
We are all for development but when such glaring discrepancies are found in studies to construct multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects such as these and safety is compromised and ignored by both the Federal and State government, the public loses faith in them.
So we have been accused as being selfish, of being arrogant and even labelled as highway opponents and some even with racist comments that are not warranted for. Truth be told — there is nothing selfish in wanting to protect your own home and family from harm, of wanting a better future and environment for our children. Many of us here bought our humble homes and units and it is all most of us can afford.
All the Rakyat is asking for are good governance and right decision of transparency and integrity made by the government and local authorities. This is about making the right decisions that do not compromise sacrificing and pitting one group of residents for another, or bulldozing high-risk elevated highways through dense townships that do not add to good town planning. At the end of the day, it is the people who bear the consequences of bad decisions of a government once the highway is constructed. Building a highway next to homes set a dangerous precedent as a way forward.
As members of the public, we trust the elected government in governing well for the community — and that includes not putting our environment and our safety in the line of fire. We thank the Menteri Besar and the Selangor Exco for removing Damansara Perdana and Mutiara Damansara from the PJ Local City Plan 2 (RTPJ 2) in the current amendment exercise. However, to put this matter to rest permanently, we require the MB and the Selangor Exco to put a final decision on this matter that has been haunting residents here for 3.5 years.
The residents of Damansara place their faith on you as the ruling State government where your people’s fate and the future environment depends on the decisions you make. Build DASH if you must, but build it away from homes and developed townships that do not need it. If you cannot make the right and sustainable decisions for the State, how do we trust you to make the right ones for the country?
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.
