New Traffic Lights Set Up

The Star Online

Thursday November 25, 2010

TWO housing developers have installed a set of traffic lights each and several lamp posts outside their housing schemes in Butterworth to help improve traffic flow.

Seberang Prai municipal councillor Soon Lip Chee said PJD Eastern Land, the developer of Harbour Place, installed a set of traffic lights on New Ferry Road which would be put on a two-week trial run from this week.

He said the traffic lights would help to improve traffic flow to the nearby Taman Mewah flats.

“When approving the Harbour Place layout plan, the council had asked the developer to build two new access roads and install a set of traffic lights on New Ferry Road,” he said in an interview.

Soon said this was necessary to cater to the anticipated high number of vehicles travelling between the Seaview Tower condominium and busy New Ferry Road.

He said PJD Eastern had built one of the access roads — a 200m-long road connecting Seaview Tower to New Ferry Road next to the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

He said the second road would connect Park View Tower and New Ferry Road, near the New Ferry Road Voluntary Fire Fighting squad’s base.

Seaview Tower and Parkview Tower are part of the Harbour Place project.

Soon said the other developer, Syarikat Perumahan Negara Berhad, had installed a set of traffic lights connecting its Taman Limbungan Indah mixed development project on Jalan Kapal to Chain Ferry Road.

“This particular set of traffic lights is highly necessary as many accidents had occurred at the road junction.

“These lights will only be functional next month as the developer has yet to complete resurfacing the road shoulders,” he said.

Fellow councillor Oon Neow Aun said although both new traffic lights were located less than 200m from the main traffic lights at the Chain Ferry Road-New Ferry Road junction, they were vital for traffic dispersal as there were too many shop houses along both stretches.

“There are five traffic lights between Taman Bagan and the Penang Sentral temporary bus terminal which is a distance of less than 1km.

“We will try our best to synchronise the timing of these traffic lights” he said.

Another councillor, S. Chandrasekeran, encouraged the public to give their feedback on the function and timing of the traffic lights to any municipal councillor or via the council’s website at http://www.mpsp.gov.my/english/pengunjung.asp.

“The council’s traffic committee will compile the feedback and take necessary action,” he said.