12/05/2025
𝗦𝗨𝗕𝗔𝗡𝗚 𝗝𝗔𝗬𝗔 𝗪𝗢𝗘𝗦
This is for anyone who lives in Subang Jaya, has ever lived in Subang Jaya, has ever visited Subang Jaya, has ever planned to visit Subang Jaya, ever passed by Subang Jaya, knows anyone who already lives in Subang Jaya, or knows anyone who has ever heard of Subang Jaya, or anyone who plans to settle down in Subang Jaya, Selangor.
Subang Jaya is infamous for 2 things; congested roads and too many food outlets that contributes more to the congestion. It has the most congested roads in any part of the city that you can think of. Mention SS15, Taipan, USJ or any place with a bank etc., they are congested everywhere.
Every morning, everyone wants to get out of Subang Jaya to go to work and everyone outside of Subang Jaya wants to go through Subang Jaya as well on their way to anywhere.
In the evenings, it is repeated the other way around. Everyone comes home to Subang Jaya after work, and others who does not live in Subang Jaya goes through it to go back to their respective homes via Federal Highway on one end and the Kesas at the other end towards Klang, Kota Kemuning, Putra Heights, Subang, Damansara, KL etc.
There are several highways to get out of Subang Jaya, i.e., Kesas, Federal Highway, NPE, PLUS or LDP. However, once you reach or even before you reach them, you are caught again in another congestion, literally a double whammy and still have to pay the toll!
You can choose the LRT instead, but parking at the departing and arrival stations are again big problems with a lack of parking space.
It takes 45 minutes by LRT to reach KL.
The main road that cuts across Subang Jaya is Persiaran Kewajipan. It is about 8km, stretching from USJ21 to SS15. Despite having 3 lanes throughout until it comes to a 200m stretch parallel to SS14 where it narrows to 2 lanes, it is congested all the way throughout the day.
This particular SS15 end of Persiaran Kewajipan is famous for the ‘roundabout crawl’ due to the presence of car owners who send their children or waits to pick them up from a school near the roundabout. This chokes up traffic in all directions during the morning rush hour and in the afternoon around 3pm as the whole area becomes a massive parking lot, with cars parking around the roundabout!
There are many eateries around Subang Jaya such as SS15 or Taipan. As is the case in other towns, there are insufficient parking lots everywhere due to the crowd who comes looking for good food. Double, and even triple parking is the norm.
Compounding these places where there are banks, it is common to find a piece of paper on car dashboards, either showing the owners’ mobile numbers or a summons for illegal parking.
Yet, despite such horrendous traffic conditions for many years, not much has been done to improve or let alone address the congestion. Ad-hoc development decisions are often implemented, such as closing the right lane turning from Persiaran Kewajipan to the Kesas highway back in 2018 with the promise of smooth traffic to USJ after 3 years.
However, the traffic towards USJ today is worse than ever, with congested traffic all day along the full stretch of Persiaran Kewajipan. A promised elevated U-turn next to the Kesas toll plaza for smoother traffic dispersal remains unfulfilled since 2012, with rush hour traffic towards Puchong stuck as cars squeeze their way at the temporary U-turn from 10 lanes to 2 in order to continue their journey towards Klang, all because of the Persiaran Kewajipan right lane turn closure.
More development projects are coming up around the vicinity of Subang Jaya such as SS12, SS16, USJ1, USJ7, Sunway South Quay etc. These are high density development projects that will increase traffic congestion in Subang Jaya. Once completed, the increased vehicle volume will choke up the already over-burdened Persiaran Kewajipan and other areas.
Meanwhile, planners are trying to address such concerns by proposing flyovers for traffic dispersals from their impacted areas across to other areas by thinking that such ideas would easily overcome their own traffic congestion problems. A simple phrase to call this practice is where a neighbour just throws rubbish onto another neighbour’s backyard!
The irony is that such ideas were only thought of from their own perspective, benefiting only themselves without the involvement of impacted residents from the other areas where the flyover locations are being proposed, resulting in a lack of transparency, poor planning and waste of time and financial resources.
A bad example was the proposed flyover at the USJ1 junction. The RM51.5m flyover had to be cancelled due to an issue “with the discovery of underground utilities” as they did not have utilities mapping underground, according to the MBSJ Mayor.
Another bad example is a proposed flyover from Jalan Lagoon Selatan across Persiaran Kewajipan that leads to the Subang-Kelana Jaya Link, parallel to SS14. This has been objected to by residents since 2023 due to the lack of details from the proponents.
The residents had repeatedly pointed out that the proposed location is unsuitable along the narrow 2 lane stretch. Even without eyes, one can see that obviously this will lead to worsen traffic congestion if construction work proceeds as one lane will have to be closed to facilitate construction works, but apparently this fact has fallen on deaf ears.
The unilateral decisions taken by the proponents to decide on such planning without consultations with the stakeholder residents will only enhance and prolong the reputation of Subang Jaya as a heavily congested city.
Subang Jaya brands itself with its glorious theme- “Subang Jaya Gemilang Bersama.” It has a 5 year Strategic Plan for 2020-2025 that promotes economic development to become a Smart Vibrant City that is lively, high spirited, energetic, friendly, environmentally green and smart. The proposed flyover was never part of that plan.
Sadly, these promises will not give Subang Jaya residents the choice and space to realise such dreams unless the traffic congestion issues are smartly and efficiently addressed in a transparent manner.
Wong Chen
Ng Sze Han 黄思汉
Michelle Ng Mei Sze 黄美诗
Balachandran Naicker
Majlis Bandaraya Subang Jaya
DAP Selangor
SUBANG JAYA Community
USJ Community | Komuniti | 社区
Subang Jaya & USJ Community
Jabatan Kerja Raya Negeri Selangor
Lembaga Lebuhraya Malaysia
Support our Petition against the flyover:
https://chng.it/m9H7DbnyVX
Credit: FaceBook post by I grew up in Georgia (Marion Conaway)
