Planning Blogs: dateline: August 2007

4/08/07 Are young Malaysians today cut out to be consultants?

The MTV Generation, walk on Reeboks, have never heard Fung Keong shoes, feed on Big Macs, drink at Starbucks and buy everything off supermarket shelves. A lot of them have never seen a live chicken being slaughtered, let alone catching it with their bare hands and holding it while its throat is being slit by grandad. They seemed to be so materialistic that doing anything that is not remunerated with money is considered worthless. Very few young graduates I have interviewed and even employed had shown potentials of being groomed into professionals. They are in a hurry to earn big money but too lazy to learn. They have no real interest to specialise and no sense of loyalty. The worst of the lot are denuded of dignity or self esteem. They don't even know the meaning of those words. Money talks, and for little more money and they walk. Does anyone else feel this way? Frightening...

18/7/07 An analogy for our cities

Our cities have gone the way of Malaysian football. No character, just functional. It's all about money. Cities and towns are built purely for the monetary returns. Developers hardly built houses that they themselves want to live in.

070707 Minimum Standards & design guide for a surau in shopping malls

It is time we have a formal design guide that specifies the minimum standards for suraus within a shopping mall and other buildings where the public congregate. Some suraus that have been built are simply impractical, especially at the entrance area where it is usually congested, as well as wet. The ventilation system literally stinks too! I get the feeling that whoever did the layout for these suraus have never used one before.

25/6/07 What if...

... We design a nice looking building like the district cooling station in KLCC for use as transfer station or incinerator. Will anyone object to it being located in the city centre perhaps?

22/6/07 Put your money where your mouth is

The volume of trash left behind at FRIM after 17 June Environment Day celebration is a true testimony of how caring Malaysians are for their natural environment…

21/6/07 It's not the money that matters

My daughter was helping the maid tie up the bundles of old newspaper for her primary school's monthly recycling effort when my in-laws dropped in. "Why do you need to do that? Your school is already rich". My daughter told her, "We have to protect Mother Nature. When you were a child you can swim in the rivers. I can't swim in any river now".

19/6/07 Is the motorcycle lane a public access?

If yes, how can we allow a private developer to completely cordon it off for storage of their machineries? I saw this at the PJ Hilton interchange.

Average Ecological Footprint (EF)/capita: 4-10ha high-income countries; a third ha in poorest Africa. Malaysia's EF is 2.2ha (2006) - at world's average now. To maintain this, we need to check ‘growth’ while continuing to develop. Can we be a 'developed' country without 'growth'?

15/6/07 Eco footprint is…

…how large an area (land & water ecosystems) is required to support a specific level of human population, wherever on Earth the relevant land/water resource is located.

28/5/07 Road Closures

Why can't we announce impending road closures well in advance to avoid unnecessary congestion? We have ITIS signboards and at least 20 radio stations (in Klang Valley). But no, we only hear about it on the radio the very morning when we are stuck in the massive jam caused by the road closure.

21/5/07 How much work is 2 man-month worth?

Assume 22 man-days (industry standard!) for each man-month. At a 12-month local plan study period, that is only 3.6 days per month allocation for work. At 18-month study period, it is just 2.4 days a month. Deduct the days spent on meetings: allow 6 days for Consultant coordination meetings; 6 days meeting Pengurus Projek; 2 for J/K Penyelaras; 8 for local & state authorities; 1 for SPC; 6 for ‘retreats’ & FGDs; that makes up a total of 29 man-days. Add 3 days of site visits; and 4 days of report writing & printing the total goes up to 36 man-days. Man-days left to do real work 44-36= 8. That is equivalent to about 0.6 days per month for 12 month period to do research, reading, analysis, etc.

16/5/07 London West End: Oxford St , Regent St. And Bond St: an Action Plan for the Retail Streets

Key facts: >5m people/week visit the West End; the 3 retail streets contain 613,140m² of retail space & >600 shops; up to 1,200 vehicles travel along the 3 streets every hour; an estimated 165,000 people get on/off buses on Oxford St each weekday; the 5 tube (underground) stations serving the area are used by >100m passengers/year; the cost of keeping the streets clean & collecting waste, including emptying 300 bins 6 times/day, are similar to those of a small town in the UK (source: Planning 27/4/07; p.18-19). That is only a very small part of Central London!

16/5/07 Road safety for motorcycles

Statistics have shown that a high proportion of road deaths & traffic accidents involved motorcyclists. We should seriously look into the training & awareness on road safety for motorcyclists. The basic riding course is simply inadequate. How many times do you come across motorcycles that try to overtake cars that are changing lane? That is not simply a dangerously manoeuvre, it is downright suicidal!

25/4/07 KL Bus Lanes again

I have to raise this issue again. Is it still in force or not? I sometimes see 2 lanes of private vehicles in the bus lane. Even a DBKL's Pajero has been seen using the bus lane.

21/4/07 Cleanliness/High density housing

Why can't the compounds of low cost housing areas be as neat and clean as those of up-market areas?

7/4/07 Respect

We should start showing respect to the janitor sweeping the streets before we can teach our children to respect us.

1/4/07 Soccer pitch in public parks

We hardly see public parks designed to include soccer pitches and other sports facilities. Why?

25/3/07 Safety matter again

Is it safe to have two lanes of traffic on the ramp connecting northbound Jalan Kuching to Jalan Sultan Ismail? I believe the ramp was originally designed for one lane of traffic and DBKL rightly put up a sign to indicate that it should be used that way. It scares me to see the ramp being used for 2 lanes of traffic during peak hours. It may help reduced congestion on Jalan Kuching during peak hours but can the old ramp safely bear the load?

2/3/07 Go Paper-less - Let's save some trees

JPBD should compile a database of consultants that have undertaken jobs for the Department and the individual consultants registered and given a reference number. Their CVs and details of academic and professional qualifications can be recorded on-line. That way these individuals will not have to re-submit hardcopies of their CVs and certificates every time they tendered for a project with JPBD, other than their respective reference number. That would save a lot of papers and the trees used for making paper. JPBD could also link up its database with the BOP and MIP to verify that the consultants have valid professional registration. Then PBPT can also use the database to verify planners making plan submissions.

1/3/07 Respect for the law

Do you know why our younger generation seems to have no regards for the law and authority figure? Because we taught them to! Just observe parents sending their kids to school. They ignore teachers trying to enforce security measures, drive through a one way streets, park the wrong way, obstruct traffic and more. We taught our kids to be self-centred.

27/2/07 Ramp it but not on the sidewalk!

I was waiting for some friends in front of a mamak shop near the Rasta Food Court in Taman Tun Dr Ismail, KL, when I noticed that the shop had provided a ramp access onto the raised floor of the restaurant. The only flaw is that the ramp & steps were built on the public sidewalk.

26/2/07 Bike Lane

It is ironic that in a nation with as many motorcycles as there are cars, we hardly produced anything innovative to deal with safe passage of motorcycles.

17/2/07 Sidewalks: We need a paradigm shift

Where should we put a pedestrian path on a street? We are too concern about design of drains, junctions, utility trenches but not people. Many residential areas have nicely laid out roads but no place for pedestrian to walk safely. Sidewalks should be continuous, not truncated by entrance roads into a building or apartment block.

7/2/07 When ITIS gave inaccurate infomation

”Trafik lancar di Jalan Tun Razak selepas susur Jalan Ipoh”. It wasn’t.

6/2/07 Waste bins

How far do you have to walk to find a rubbish bin along the roadside in KL?

26/1/07 Reinventing Hawker Centres

Why don't we acquire old abandoned shop-houses and renovate them into hawker centres?

26/1/07 The Other Side of Progress

We never talk about the blighted areas left behind after the airport moved to KLIA and Federal government departments moved to Putrajaya. These are some of our brownfield sites around the Klang Valley.