Parking problem in Putrajaya

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THE residents of Putrajaya are still waiting with bated breath for the much promised monorail service.

The RM1.8bil monorail system, as announced by the Government was supposed to have been completed by the end of 2004.

Where is the space?: Inconsiderate motorists blocking an access lane to the government offices in Parcel E Putrajaya.

It was to provide an alternative to the Nadi Putra bus and the Express Rail Link (ERL) services.

The then Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor said the monorail track stretching 18km comprising two phases were being built around Putrajaya and linked to several important landmarks like the Putrajaya Convention Centre, Putrajaya Mosque and the Government Administrative Complex in Parcel E.

While most of the infrastructure necessary for Phase One of the project, involving some 12km, is already up, the rest of the project is lying dormant.

Currently, as far as the monorail system is concerned, the ride ends here for the moment.

The main mode of communication remains the Nadi Putra services.

But while the bus service serves as an effective public transportation system, there are not many takers, hence the parking problem had reached a dire state in the Federal administrative capital.

In places like Parcels B, C, D and E where the major government offices are located, it had reached a critical situation.

Perbadanan Putrajaya (PPj) tried to implement the park-and-ride (P&R) concept to encourage the use of public transport and also to ease parking woes.

Under the system, the buses were used to ferry passengers to where their offices were located.

When the system was first implemented, there were parking facilities for only 30% of the civil servants.

The rest had to park their cars at the designated parking venues at other precincts and take the bus.

However, some Putrajaya residents said they preferred to drive as the buses did not follow schedules.

Transport, Traffic and City Service Department deputy director Rahim Junoh had said there were enough buses to cater for the working population and yet people still preferred to drive into Putrajaya and cause congestion.

Some Nadi Putra drivers had also claimed that there were no passengers to pick along the assigned routes although they kept strictly to schedules.

Due to the large number of cars, PPj also has to contend with indiscriminate parking in Putrajaya especially near the government offices.

Junoh had said that the corporation had been lenient in the past and allowed the motorists to park along road shoulders since there were not enough parking facilities in the city.

But beginning January this year, the corporation announced that it would act firmly on illegal parking and advise those who had parked along the road shoulders to use the P&R facilities.

There are 3,400 parking bays at Precinct 1, 7 and 14, and enough bays for people to park their vehicles and then hop on to the P&R buses.

With all these in place, PPj should not only encourage motorists to use the P&R facility but also practice strict enforcement in order for the system to work.