Archive for 04/04/2013

Apr

The Chaotic Morning

Written by Rano Iskandar. Posted in RA News

The Ugly Truth

RA says First Brunei Problems. Or in hastag term #FirstBruneiProblems. I haven’t been ranting or following up to the Ugly Truth for the past weeks or so. But now I feel the urge to do because this is the one of those days that I need to voice out my concern with my disagreement with the relevant authorities. Yesterday was the premiere or so called debut of the traffic light operation at the major roundabout at Kiulap. I did post my concern a month ago on my instagram and FB and I’ve predicted that this can be chaotic and many also gave feedback to the idea of traffic lights at the popular roundabout.

Yesterday was the first time I avoided the roundabout upon returning home. Well, that was only one out of four times yesterday alone *lol* My first attempt was noon time and it caught me by surprise because I wasn’t aware of it until I was driving towards the roundabout from Beribi. Ok fine, there is a timer set for the green and EVEN for the red (so that gives you the chance to rev your car if you feel like it) but the timing sometimes doesn’t offer much help either due to the short time duration for the green when coming from Beribi.. I believe it was only given 10 seconds or so and mind you, on peak hours, coming from Beribi can get quite a few even without traffic lights alone.

My second attempt was at 3:40pm and also attempting the same route, thinking that the traffic lights won’t be operation since it’s not peak hours. Believe or not, it was still on operation. But the great thing was it was a peak hour so exiting from Beribi was an easier task. My third attempt was almost midnight coming from highway (airport) but the lights were out so it was all good. Then again, I was the only car at that time *lol*

Now here’s the tricky part… Traffic lights on two lanes was a tricky in the beginning but it was easier to educate because of the minor complexity when it comes to switch lanes. Now bring that concept to a 3-lane roundabout. This equates to CHAOS… Trust me… and I predicted this will happe this morning and it did. More on that later. I’m a third inner lane user when I’m heading for the 2nd or 3rd entry point. Now it’s merely impossible to do so because of the momentum to switch lane from 3rd lane to the 2nd lane (middle one). I’m hardly a first laner unless the entry point is my next one. This is what’s causing the jam and plus the time duration of the traffic light is not making it any better. I still believe if the timer was calibrate to its optimum, it won’t be a successful task on a three-lane roundabout. I know that most 3rd lane users share the same sentiments as I do.

So Public Works Department (JKR), this is one serious matter that you have to look and put this on high priority because the pictures and the comments below are enough to open your eyes and see the real situation. Too bad P.A.R. won’t be stating his points of view on Opinion Page or Letters to the Editor but the comments here I post is enough to justify that a traffic light at a 3-lane roundabout doesn’t work.

Pictures below are screenshots from Instagram and also from Waze. Sorry peeps for using some of the screenshots 😀

The traffic situation taken at 8am today. Screen shot from Waze.

Ok, here’s the cause and effect of having traffic lights on a big roundabout.

1) The focal point (roundabout itself) is the nucleus of the other incoming routes (Kiulap, Ripas, Gadong, Beribi and Highway from airport). If that gets stuck even for 5 minutes, it will affect other routes. This has happened before because of a road accident inside the roundabout.

2) People are late for work. I saw one or two pictures of Instagram from my peers that their mates/colleagues are late because they are caught in traffic this morning.

3) There are even students dropping off at the Kiulap roundabout. My thinking would be because parents need to go to work after sending their children. So to cut time short and not entering the roundabout again, they are left with little choice but let their children off by the road. Not safe either.

4) Accident prone? Well, there was already one accident that I heard yesterday but I can’t confirmed that but it was commented on my instagram. I remembered being stuck at the middle land of the roundabout while waiting for the green light. The cars behind me squeezed through just to head out of the exits. This would be mean that I have to be alert of the cars in front of me and the traffic light as well as the cars behind me too. This really means I have to be extra, extra present that I’m usually am.

5) The final effect I hope to see predict is “Just Turn Off the Lights”, guys!! 😀

I’m sorry for my huge rant on this issue but whoever the consultant was for this project, they didn’t deliver the right formula.

For those who wants to give feedback, do email to pro@pwd.gov.bn and they welcome positive and negative feedback. For now, it seems there have been negative ones and I can’t even seem to see a positive one for now. Even those who were positive about it might turn tables 🙂 This is RA signing out.

Roundabout Memes

Well, at least there’s something to cheer up among the locals. As usual, whenever some hot issues pop up, people will start doing memes to crack a laugh or two. I’m still searching for catchy ones but below are some of the ones I found on social networks. I’m hoping for more later during the day.

For a start, it’s good that the lights are finally switched off around 8ish or 9ish this morning after they have learnt that the congestion got worse instead of smooth sailing. It is now back to the drawing board and with more than a 1/4 of a million spent on this project, the pressure will be on the relevant agencies to come up with a better solution. They could have used policemen at the traffic light points to do trial run and see the impact and implications and work from there.

Below are also suggestions and feedback from my peers on IG and Facebook. And most of them aren’t positive either. It’s not too late to fix things but the $310,000 project might be money not well spent. I still believe even with the right timer for the indicators, it won’t solve the problem because of the three-lane concept. A lesson learnt to the relevant parties involved especially the consultants. No hard feelings but this needs to be addressed. We are still grateful that the congestion is way better than our regional neighbours but we also need to think ahead too and not be complacent. I’m pretty sure MOD/JKR are on this matter as I blog and let’s trust that they will solve this issue :))