KUALA LUMPUR: MORE than a year after being introduced, a stretch of bicycle lane from Menara DBKL to the KL Convention Centre is nameless, and referred to only as the Blue Lane.
The lanes are now a lighter shade of blue, and some patches are beginning to lose the blue hue. But it isn’t from overuse.
The Blue Lane was willed into existence just before the World Urban Forum in February last year.
A showcase to display City Hall’s green initiatives at the forum, it stretches just over 11km.
But it has one flaw. Circling the city centre for its entire length, the lane stands like an island separated from other residential areas in the Klang Valley.
With no other residential bicycle lane feeding into the Blue Lane, the lane hardly has any cyclist plying it daily.
City Hall is coy with statistics, but a few observations by the New Sunday Times revealed hardly any user.
Since being introduced, the lanes have been on the receiving end of criticism from many quarters.
Traffic engineering specialist Dr Law Teik Hua called out City Hall for building a lane that served no purpose.
“I can’t see any reason for the existence of the lanes, except to show that KL has one. The demand is not justified by studies and statistics.
“It loops around town and is not connected to any suburb by walkways or cycle networks.
“Neither does it bridge into residential areas to allow people to commute from their homes.
“This is a quintessential prerequisite for the success of cycle ways, together with a seamless public transport system, which KL lacks.”
The Blue Lane is not the only dysfunctional bike lane that has been built.
Over the years, City Hall has received much publicity for building bicycle lanes, but has little data to back their effectiveness.
The 5.5km lane from Mid Valley Megamall to Dataran Merdeka, which was KL’s first bicycle lane introduced in 2015, is now closed in sections.
City Hall does not publish traffic data for these lanes.
However, the poor use of the lanes is expected to change with the announcement of a new route.
After years on the drawing board, the first bicycle lane bridging a major residential area to the city centre is expected to be up and running in about a year.
The link from Wangsa Maju to KLCC — the outcome of millions in ringgit and years of public announcements, masterplans and occasional community workshops — is also hailed as a game changer.
It will be laid out on the reserves of Sungai Bunus stretching 4km between a pocket park next to the Wangsa Maju LRT station, and Jalan Raja Abdullah in Kampung Baru, before feeding for the Blue Lane near KLCC.
The lane is also hoped to serve thousands of residents in neighbourhoods within a few kilometre of the catchment area.
City Hall is expected to break ground on the project next month before moving on to bridge other residential areas to the city’s cycling networks, said its planning executive director, Datuk Mahadi Che Ngah.
Mahadi said the trail, which doubles up as a walkway, tapped into the extensive river reserves of Sungai Bunus and shaded parklands of the Ayer Panas and Titiwangsa lake gardens.
“It costs only around RM1 million because we are using part of the river reserve.
“There is just minor work to elevate the ground and put in concrete.
“We will also landscape the stretches with shrubs and plants along the lane as we have found that shade is important to encourage people to walk or cycle,” he said in an interview with the New Sunday Times.
He did not discount the possibility of allowing stalls to be built at the side of the lane once it was operational, opening up the possibility of it becoming a lively boulevard similar to Singapore’s Clarke Quay riverfront.
The link is expected to be one of many that will form a network connecting neighbourhoods to the city.
Mahadi said RM4.5 million was set aside in the 2019 Budget for the lane, as well as another connector to raise a recreational lane in Jalan Datuk Sulaiman, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, and bridge it to the MRT station, apart from upgrading a lane in Wangsa Maju.
“There is a long list of neighbourhoods we would like to connect, but we are doing it in phases.
“We also want to wait for the Infrastructure and Planning Department’s blueprints of the (draft) KL cycling and pedestrian masterplan 2017-2021, which seeks to identify and revive disused routes.
“The first phase will be out soon, and will be sent to the mayor for his go-ahead.
“Our goal is to ensure that all neighbourhoods are linked to public transport by walkways or cycling lanes.
“This is so everything will be linked and KLites can access the city from their neighbourhoods without having to drive.
“This is also in line with our pledge to reduce the carbon emission in KL by 70 per cent by 2030.”
The tender for the Sungai Bunus lane is expected to be called soon and the project will be done in phases.
He said the lane would run through Pulapol, which is gazetted as a heritage site, hence City Hall needs time to gain the Heritage Department’s consent and feedback.
“We are trying to engage them and residents based on our LA21 requirements.
“It will take at least two months to do this.”
DBKL Infrastructure Planning Department director Sulaiman Mohamad said the authority hoped that every project in the city initiated by it or government agencies would have bicycle lanes.
This is an effort in its Bicycle and Pedestrian Masterplan, which his department has been commissioned to draft and conduct studies for with the aid of consultants from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
Sulaiman said City Hall would push for projects developed by it and government agencies to have bicycle lanes in the future.