Ten More Roads In KL Will Have A 30km/h Speed Limit Imposed – Priorities On Highly Pedestrianised Areas

According to The Star, Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) and the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros) have proposed imposing a mandatory speed limit of 30 km/h on 10 more roads in the city.

The exact locations for the 30 km/h speed limit have yet to be recognized but, Miros hopes that the 10 roads will be in highly pedestrianised areas, said Miros chairman Wong Shaw Voon.

Wong said, the locations proposed for the 30 km/h speed limit are based on accident records, vulnerable road users, and those with a high number of complaints from the community. The authorities' speed management intervention measures would also include road humps, roundabouts, and transverse bars, with the goal of slowing traffic in these areas,

Feasibility studies are expected to be completed by the end of the year, The Star reported. “DBKL has already imposed a 30 km/h speed limit in some school zones. Under the new proposal, several roads with a current speed limit of 40 km/h will be reduced to 30 km/h, while roads with a 60 km/h speed limit will be reduced to 50 km/h,” Wong added.

However, Goh Bok Yen, a transportation planning expert has a different view on this implementation because he believes that road safety should be approached holistically, rather than simply by lowering speed limits.

“It is timely for DBKL to transform city roads and make them user-friendly to non-motorised vehicles such as bicycles and [other] pedestrians. Achieving a more balanced redistribution of road space between vehicles and pedestrians in the central business district is crucial,” Goh said.

New road design guidelines for lower speeds must include wider and safer walkways for non-motorized road users, as well as a shift away from traditional car-centric road design and operation and toward one that accommodates different types of road users, he said.

He suggested that while arterial roads such as Jalan Kuching, Jalan Cheras, and Jalan Tun Razak would remain motor vehicle-centric, others such as Jalan Tun H.S. Lee, Jalan Petaling, and Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman should prioritise non-motorised vehicles and pedestrians by having wider walkways, and that vehicle speeds could be reduced by narrowing the lane widths for motor vehicles to reduce their speeds.

The next step could be to restrict certain types of vehicles, such as trailers, in the central business district, to dedicate lanes on arterial roads for motorcycles, and to have roads that only allow public transportation vehicles, with Goh citing London as an example.