Wish List#2: Traffic Management

For a small island as Penang, traffic management could be better.  There are a few fundamental traffic management flaws that I see that makes the traffic worse:
a.  Too many traffic lights; it just slows traffic.. Use more U-turns instead for traffic that wants to cross to the other side.
b.  No proper "ring" highways roads that provides the main artery for traffic flow. Just imagine a hwy that circles around, and with exit points to the main towns, e.g. Air Itam, George Town, Gelugor, Bayan Baru,...etc.
c.  No proper bike lanes since Penang has lots of motorbikes
d. Too many illegal parking that blocks traffic flow... Police not showing their presence.

One example of constant traffic jam and provides bad reflection of Penang as whole especially for outstation visitors, is the main hwy that winds towards Jalan Mesjid Negeri, near Tesco.  Visitors driving in to Penang via the bridge will get bottled up here when heading towards the northwest part of the island.
The main reason for the messy jam is the traffic light at Jalan Delima and 2-to-1 lane merge at the underpass.  Whose bright idea was this, since this is a major artery road to the north?  If Penang road network is liken to a human blood circulation system, the human will get a "heart attack" with all the clogs  in the systems.
May I propose a solution to this longstanding issue? Remove the traffic light at Jalan Delima and provide U-turns for traffic that needs to exit or enter Jalan Delima.

For now, complaints on traffic jams in George Town can be made to the operations control room of the George Town police headquarters at 04-2181880.

2010 New Year Wish List for Penang: Wish List #1

Since it is the beginning of 2010, I will come up with  the top 10 wish list for Penang over several days. Hopefully the Penang State Govt. will get to see this list and fulfill the wishes of this "rakyat" ( citizen). Here's Wish List #1

1 Bring the Shine Back to Penang.
The state of Penang is known as the Penang Darul Sampah ( Trash), and you can see it everywhere. Just look at the drains or rivers, or sea. You can see plastic bottles, styrofoams, cartons, bottles,...etc, proudly displayed for all to see.  Just visit a Pasar Malam (Night Market) and you'll see trash all over.  Once after buying something at a Pasar Malam, I was looking for a dustbin to discard the trash, but could not find one. The trader just told me to throw it on the road, and someone will clear the rubbish later. I guess there is a system here, i.e. throw now, and later someone will clear it.  My take is that this will create a mentality that basically teaches everyone including kids, that since this is not your house, and someone will clear it later,  it is perfectly fine to throw your rubbish anywhere.  What is a dustbin for if no one uses them? The gov't of the day needs to change the system and policy to educate the public that it is never right to throw your rubbish everywhere, and expect some garbage man to come clean up your mess later. This is one bad habit that will take strict enforcement from the gov't to get everyone to comply. If need to get example of how to enforce, just do a "lawatan sambil belajar" ( learning while visit) trip to Singapore.  Over there, even construction works e.g. road or buildings looked neat and no debris overspilling over public areas.  Since this year is Visit Penang Year, I am sure tourists appreciate clean and pleasant, and not smelly surroundings. 

Image via Wikipedia