It is no news to me when flash floods hit KL as and when the heavy rain falls.The residents of KL like me are quite used to them.And we hope the new SMART TUNNEL annnounced by the government will take care of that.
But, it is news to me when Putrajaya got flooded.This is the first time-and IMHO,it will happen again if nothing is done to mitigate or prevent the flood from occuring again...
The test of the pudding is in the eating.The rain yesterday afternoon caused a flash flood at the tunnel that connect Precint 9 and 11 of Putrajaya. It was reported to be about waist-high.I don't think I could go to sleep if I am in-charge of the infra-structural works of PutraJaya. The rain was a good test of how good the drainage plan was designed,constructed and maintained.
To my fellow engineers at Putrajya, over to you and I wish you well.
This is an interesting idea. I have never heard of the Smart Tunnel or even Putrajya (I'm just an American guy living in Bangkok) but now thanks to your webpage and a few searches at Google, I have learned a lot. Thanks!
By the way, both projects are interesting from a Bangkok perspective. Flooding is an annual problem here too. Also, there has been some renewed talk of moving the capital out to one of the provences and building a planned-from-scratch new city. We'll see if Thailand can learn from Malaysia's successes and mistakes.
Posted by: Stuart | Friday, August 15, 2003 at 10:43 AM
I was in Bangkok nine months ago and I was surprised to see so many elevated highways and yet the traffic jams donot changed very much. It is the same situation like in Kuala Lumpur.
IMHO, the numbers of cars and the drivers behaviors are the major factors that cause the traffic jams..
Posted by: Adib | Friday, August 15, 2003 at 02:30 PM