A bus lane will be operational along Jalan Kelang Lama in Kuala Lumpur from Thursday, August 15, 2024. The exclusive lane is introduced by Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur and Rapid Bus Sdn Bhd (which operates Rapid KL bus and MRT feeder services) on a trial basis.
This is the third bus lane project for Rapid Bus and will be 6.37 kms long, starting from Jalan Puchong up to Taman Halimahton which is just before the turn-off to the Federal Highway.
The lane will be active from 6am to 9am, Monday to Friday, but open to other traffic on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.
With the bus able to move more efficiently and not be obstructed by other traffic, the lane is expected to help reduce travel time. It can save travel time by up to 10 minutes from Kinrara to the city centre. It is expected to benefit residents around Puchong, Sri Manja, Taman Kinrara, Taman Desa, Taman OUG and Jalan Kuchai Lama.
Those who get down at Taman Halimahton can also walk to the KTM station at Seputeh which is 570 metres away, or to MidValley about 1 km away where there is also a KTM station.
According to Rapid Bus CEO, Muhammad Yazurin Sallij, having bus lanes in the Jalan Ampang and Jalan Genting Kelang corridors since last year have seen an increase in use of its buses by 27% and 42%, respectively.
The impact of the bus lane on traffic along Jalan Kelang Lama remains to be seen. As it is, that road is frequently congested, especially
from the Taman Desa junction (sometimes up to the Jalan Kuchai Lama junction) up to MidValley.
During the 1990s, a 1.3-km long bus lane was introduced after the Kuen Cheng School along Jalan Syed Putra up to the MidValley bridge. With one lane less, it created a bottleneck as traffic was forced into two lanes. In October last year, DBKL deactivated the bus lane (along with the one towards KL on the other side) and with 3 lanes available again, the congestion that was common has been greatly reduced.
As the use of Smart Lanes has shown, an extra lane does help to improve traffic flow. Of course, DBKL still wants to see greater use of public transport so it is trying to make the bus services as efficient as possible. Allocating a lane exclusively for buses during peak hours may help but it I also during peak hours that traffic congestion is at its worst. Anyway, it is on a trial basis so let’s see how it turns out.