I love Cameron Highlands. It’s relaxing and well, there’s always new things to see when we visit it once or twice per year. Beyond just the cactus or the sweet corn, the view from BOH Sungai Palas tea centre is good enough to fool some friends that I went overseas. 🙂 Okay, now for the SMALL issue. Haha. During holidays, it’s extremely jammed up there. The reason is because it’s still a small place and there’s just one road up there even if there are many roads going up Cameron Highlands these days. From Ipoh, one can go up via Simpang Pulai. From KL, one can drive up via Tapah. There are also some people driving in from Gua Musang too.
This is the latest news about Cameron Highlands. Article in EdeProp.my here. Tanah Rata assemblyman Chiong Yoke Kong has suggested to restrict vehicle entry into Cameron Highlands during long weekends. As quoted by the Malay Mail, he suggested that the local government must start studying public transport policy, enforce traffic laws and restrict the influx of vehicles during holidays. He said during the recent long weekend, travelling 2 to 3km took three to four hours! He shared, “Cameron Highlands District Council can utilise the entrances at Blue Valley and Ringlet, and can even cooperate with the Perak state government to build parking lots at Tapah and Simpang Pulai which are at foothills in order to implement vehicle restrictions and provide feeder services such as small buses that bring tourists to Cameron Highlands.”
He said that during long holidays the average number of cars in Cameron Highlands exceeded 10,000 daily. He said, “The unplanned and disorganised development by the local and state government has created several traffic bottlenecks in Cameron Highlands.” Beyond just the traffic, the local authorities have been lax in enforcing the law against vendors and tourists who park illegally. Here’s the report in Edgeprop.my
I do not foresee the issue to be solved soon. However, I think as a start, perhaps the area where the cars could be parked be identified in advance. Depending on who is the owner of the land, some negotiations on the utilisation will need to happen. Remember yeah, if the parking fees are exorbitant, asking people to park their cars and have the inconvenience of taking the public transport will not work. Then, we will have to see how efficient and effective would the public transport be. Frankly, old buses re-designated from some nearby towns are not going to work. For the public transport to work, there must really be an enforcement of no-car policy. Else, if it still takes 2-3 hours when one is travelling via the bus, it will just fail spectacularly. I do not have issues parking my car and taking the bus. Alternatively, I can even take the bus from KL itself. Just make it friendly yeah.
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written on 11 Sept 2018
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