Wednesday, 26 November 2014

People are unhappy with Kuala Lumpur road names to be changed

USA NEWS CORP



People are unhappy with Kuala Lumpur road names to be changed
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, 27 November 2014 – USANEWSCORP

The decision to change the names of eight roads in the capital came after a request from the Conference of Rulers, said Federal Territories Deputy Minister Senator Datuk J. Loga Bala Mohan. This is the first renaming of roads in the capital since DBKL came under fire in 2008 for renaming Jalan Alor, a famous 35-year old tourist spot for hawker foods, to Jalan Kejora. Agong titles plus their names are too long to remember. Long names are not easy for GPS tracking on Cell Phone too.
Loga Bala Mohan said that the royal institution felt that Kuala Lumpur lacked the identity of the monarchy and the target roads were picked by City Hall. People find it, so ridiculous! People are so used to the 'old' names, they don't need any new names! The township is more beautiful and well organized and furthermore carry the word of "Putra"
The Federal Territories Ministry said that the roads will be named after Malay rulers who have been coronated as Yang di-Pertuan Agong. The cost might be "minimal" on DBKL's part, but what about all those businesses with every staff needing to order a new batch of call-cards to reflect the change on the addresses?  Roads that are named after them are because these people had contributed / sacrificed their lives to the building of this country.
“It was the request from the Conference of Rulers, they felt that KL does not have the names of the past Agongs... this was one of the resolution passed in one of their meetings,”
According to the deputy minister, the resolution was made a year ago.
“The City Hall identified the roads and decided to make the change,” said Loga Bala Mohan. Ego-stroking exercise that will cost a lot of money for non-royals - for example, printing of new letterheads for all businesses and residential addresses to reflect the name changes, road signs etc.
However, the deputy minister was not able to confirm if any public consultation process was undertaken by the City Hall. Instead of changing the old roads name which are so familiar to the people, should use the name for new roads instead.
He added that little to no cost will be incurred by the City Hall or the ministry in changing the new road signs.
The new names are as below:
Jalan Duta to Jalan Tunku Abdul Halim
Jalan Khidmat Usaha to Jalan Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah
Jalan Ipoh (between Jalan Segambut and Jalan Pahang intersections) to Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah
Persiaran Duta to Persiaran Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin
Jalan Khidmat Setia and Jalan Ibadah to Jalan Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin
Lebuhraya Mahameru to Lebuhraya Sultan Iskandar
Persiaran Mahameru to Persiaran Tuanku Ja’afar
Jalan Semarak to Jalan Sultan Yahya Petra

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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous27 November 2014 at 03:00

    a) We can and we should and we have recognised many historical figures including rulers of our nation. Let's re-examine if naming roads after them is such a good alternative. Roads are meant to describe and place a location. If its too long, it adds enormous difficulty in remembering, mentioning to friends and other practical uses. It becomes impractical which defeats the purpose of naming roads. Jalan Tun Perak is great, so too Jalan Sultan Ismail or Swettenham Road or even Birch Road. But when a name gets too long, it becomes self defeating - the very intention to honour becomes an opportunity to ridicule.

    b) By all means, recognise our past historical figures in other ways, such as buildings, statues, gardens, fountains, mosques, bridges ... its not so cumbersome.

    c) Now when we use Waze of Google maps, before the wonderful lady can finish the instruction... "in 50 meters turn left into Jalan xxx xxx xxx..." we would have passed the exit before she can finish her instructions.

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  2. Anonymous27 November 2014 at 03:01

    d) We seem to have a huge chip on our shoulders. We should never attempt to re-write history, it happened. A road's name need not be "all good and dandy", so what if its Jalan James Birch, whether the guy was good or bad, he was part of our history Thats where our confidence, self sufficiency in our nation's history stands on ts own ... be him/her a 'bad person historically' is besides the point. We learn and acknowledge the history, the good and bad, we cannot and should repaint history or worse, only SHOW the new generation and the future "the nice side of things about Malaysia".

    e) WE ARE NOT SHORT OF NEW ROADS, heck we are never short of new roads ... there are dozens new ones every month, all over... we are not closing down roads. Why touch Jalan Duta??? Why do we try to complicate things? Why don't we prioritise other more important stuff? What if we change the names of the top 20 major buildings every 5 years, can you see the value in that???

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