Sunday, September 05, 2004

Kota Bharu is guilty Of Haphazard planning

The town of Kota Bharu, presently under the opposition rule is in dire need of some planning.The Pas ruled town either dont have a Town Planner or the town Planner is just not qualified to do the job.We have banks located at the traffic junction of wakaf siku and because of its location at the traffic lights there a daily traffic jam when patrons of bank double park to do their banking business.This is not an isolated case. At jalan Mahmood another two banks is strategically located at the traffic junction and during banking hours traffic jam is a daily occurrence .
The old Genearal Hospital located at a congested , smog filled area with insufficient parking space should have been relocated to the outskirt of town.Instead the hospital have been allowed to expand in its limited space , building new hospital wings and medical quarters for its staff.What is even more baffling is that a private hospital was allowed to be built nearby thus contributing to an overwhelming congested situation which already has its neighbour a four star hotel,the state Police Headquarters and the Wisma Persekutuan Building housing all the govt depts.Hospital cater for sick people and sick people need a clean healthy environment to convalescence and not a smog filled , congested environment in the heart of town.
Traffic congestion at the sultan Yahya Petra bridge is a daily occurrence.This congestion was already known some 10 years ago and to overcome this , some one suggested building a bridge at Pasir Mas.After completion of the bridge it was found that it had not ease the traffic congestion at Yahya Petra bridge.Instead of building a parallel bridge with the existing Yahya Petra bridge some one made the uncanny decision to build a bridge at Tendong at a cost of $100 million . Not surprisingly this also did not ease the traffic congestion.Today we are stuck with two under utilised bridge costing a few hundred million dollars and the congestion at the yahya Petra bridge remain to this day unresolve.