Cyberjaya is an example of poor planning

on Monday 1 December 2008
Now that I've been working for over a month a Cyberjaya, I can safely conclude that this township is an extremely good example of extremely bad town planning. The so-called "intelligent city" isn't very intelligently implemented. I won't talk about the pros; simply because the pros like not having much traffic and being near the Puchong area and Serdang are far outweighed by the cons.

Distance

It is located 50 km away from the Kuala Lumpur. Why in the world did they build it so far? (this applies to our KLIA as well). It's like it's full of buildings. There's ample space to build it 10 km closer, and being 10 km closer may well make it 10 times better for employers and employees alike. The distance between buildings is also laughable. You'd think they were trying to fill in as big a space as they possibly could the way the buildings are spread out. Things are not within reasonable walking distance, especially so when you get scorched by the midday sun in business attire. I wonder if the city planners thought we were in a country that sees very little sun.

Public Transport

You would've thought that this being a new township and all, they'd be smart enough to incorporate efficient public transport into it. Did they? Nope. They brought in sometimes-punctual buses with poorly labeled destinations (neither the buses nor the bus stops). If they're gonna place buildings so far apart, and with Putrajaya being close by and also a new township, you'd have thought someone would be smart enough to put in a convenient LRT system. Nope. Too much to hope for. It was probably decided that everyone either drives or simply loves the (in)frequent buses. It's probably the latter since there's a lack of convenient car parks (and yes, they expect people to walk a lot).

"Intelligent"

I failed to find anything "intelligent" about the intelligent city. The broadband speed is as sucky as it is in other townships (despite the fiber optics cabling). There's absolutely no adoption of any cutting-edge technology. No intelligent traffic lights, no hi-tech security systems in the residential areas, no computer-controlled watering or drainage system... About the only techie stuff there are what the companies there have set up. Oh, and the "funky" and "hi-tech" road names like "Jalan Multimedia".... Road signs give poor directions and don't accurately tell you where's where, until after you made the turn.


Enough ranting. While I think my office is a pleasant place to work, I'm just irked by whoever designed Cyberjaya and Putrajaya. A concept that has incredible potential screwed over by people who couldn't grasp the potential.

1 responses:

lili said...
9/12/08 14:58

Even the name "Cyberjaya" sounds wrong. Why must it combined with English, "Englay" annoys me.