Letter to Mary
Hi Mary,
In my opinion there are no “truly barrier free” public buildings in the Klang Valley. In fact, to me, there are very few of these in the places that I have been in the UK as well.
When we say “truly barrier free”, does that mean 100% barrier free and taking into consideration every nook and corner of the building and all the different needs of people, including the intellectually challenged? If yes, then there is “none”.
However, I think one of the most accessible building is Mid Valley Megamall, simply because they have improved and had constantly sought opinions from people to improve. They actually take note of people’s complaint and take action to rectify the problems. Once I complained about the accessible toilets being storage areas and places for the cleaners to lepak, and a few days later they rectified it.
One important lesson to be learned from Mid Valley Megamall is that they regard accessible parking as an important right for disabled people. I find they employ the strictest guard there (somehow these are women) who actually check for your JKM ID card. And they make sure other people don’t park there. They wait with the chains until you drive off.
Quite a few shopping malls have got accessible carparking spaces but they are not well-managed or accessible where disabled people need to go looking for the guards to assist them. Perhaps due to the demand carparking spaces in general, Mid Valley had to be well managed. On hindsight, they could very well not be well managed and ignore disabled people’s request like many do.
KLCC have lots of these carparks with the fine clearly labeled and able-bodied people don’t park in them, but the parking fees there are really expensive compared to Mid Valley. This factor need to be address by KLCC.
I find that Jaya Jusco has started to be better at managing accessible carparks as well.
This is just a few of my opinions that I have to share at this time.
Thanks.
Naziaty
Mary Chen <marychen99@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hi Naziaty
I understand you are a architect/ lecturer in architecture.
I am just wondering, which public building/s would you consider truly barrier free in Klang Valley?
mary
Naziaty Mohd Yaacob <naziaty@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hi all,
An interesting letter was published in the NST today regarding the National Transport Policy.The second para. reflected on the lack of coordination between the different modes of transport on the fact that there is no such policy in Malaysia.
National Transport Policy: Take a look at the big picture
By DATUK AHMAD SIDEK, Petaling Jaya
27 July, 2007
I CALL on the government to revisit the Malaysia Transportation Study undertaken in 1967-68 which was financed by the United Nations Development Programme and executed by the World Bank. The suggestion is made because we do not have a National Transport Policy although we have a National Automotive Policy.
The absence of such a policy has resulted in each transport mode that comes under different ministries and departments developing and expanding on its own without any regard to the different roles of the others.
In short, they are not developed as an integrated system. This has led to misallocation of resources as manifested by the duplication of facilities and even excess capacities among the various modes.
Two special factors related to transportation must be highlighted.
First, the demand for transport is a derived demand.
Second, its investments are lumpy and capital-intensive with long gestation periods.
Hence, investment mistakes in this sector are costly and their consequences will be borne by users or people for a long time.
A revisit of the study should put us back on a proper footing in formulating a National Transport Policy and planning the development of the transport sector from now on, just as the 1967-68 transport study provided the blueprint for the development of the sector over a 10-year period covering the Second and Third Malaysia Plans (1970-1980).
The need for this study is now becoming more urgent in the light of what is happening in the various transportation modes now.
We need to evaluate the transportation projects that are in the Ninth Malaysia Plan as well as any new ones coming on stream (whether government or private sector-initiated) as a total transportation or logistic system.
Projects such as the double-tracking of the present railway line, the proposed fast Kuala Lumpur-Singapore passenger train service, additional lanes to the North-South Expressway and the emergence of cheap air travel must not be looked in isolation but as part of a total integrated transportation system.
Each of these proposals will have an impact on the other.
They are not mutually exclusive. After all, we are going after the same national traffic (freight and passenger) which is being generated by our economic growth and social development.
We also keep on constructing roads. Are these roads economically justified or are they just “supply-driven” projects whereby the construction contracts and the subsequent tolls collection become their prime consideration rather than their real economic and social justifications?
There had been instances in the past where we have abandoned existing facilities in favour of new facilities, like moving to KLIA from Subang.
Although the abandoned facilities were intended for other uses, hence the demolition of the main terminal building and other adjoining buildings, such plans never fully materialised till today.
Now we are going back again to Subang for good reasons. I only wish we did not demolish the main terminal building which could be used for this purpose.
We also have a strong appetite in the past to overbuild our transportation facilities, providing capacities well ahead of effective demand.
And we were also in the habit of underwriting huge transportation investment projects by overestimating their benefits and underestimating their costs to make them look attractive at the outset, only to find once the projects were in operation that these estimates or projections were wrong and way off the mark.
Examples of these are not difficult to pinpoint.
We need a National Transport Policy and we also need a central authority to co-ordinate the transport sector development with the National Development Plan since the various transport modes do not come under one ministry.
In the 1967-68 study, the Economic Planning Unit was given not only the responsibility for the initiation and overseeing of the study but also to co-ordinate all investments in the transport sector with the national five-year plans following the recommendations.
The EPU played a pivotal role as a resource allocator and reported directly to the prime minister at that time.
If such a study were carried out, the EPU would be the most appropriate to take on this role again and report to the prime minister.
© Copyright 2007 The New Straits Times Press (M) Berhad. All rights reserved.
