Bridging a Credibility Gap

The famous "crooked" bridge of Malaysia may be built after all according to the New Sunday Times of September 4th 2005.

Among the reasons given since the project was launched just before the previous PM left office were:

A link-up between Pasir Gudang and PTP.
Allowing leisure craft to ply the Straits
Flushing out the stagnant water
A beautiful bridge rivalling other famous bridges.
An end to traffic jams on the Causeway and in the JB town center.

At that time, Singapore and Malaysia were discussing a menu of items like CPF, water supply, railway land among others and the relationship between the 2 countries was not that cordial.

Eventually there was a breakdown in talks and nothing happened until AAB took office.
By which time Singapore had also announced plans to build the Singapore Barrage that builds up its strategic water capacity.

At the ground-breaking ceremony just weeks before Dr M left office, it was reported that there were no economic consideration to decide to build the bridge.

In other words, this means that the authorities really do not care about the costs to be borne by users.

It appears that in order to prevent the new CIQ from becoming a "white elephant", the second white elephant is going to be built - ie the crooked bridge. Just do a Google on "Malaysia's crooked bridge" and read some interesting articles there.

There is also talk that the two huge water pipes along the Causeway are not going to be shifted at present as too much costs are involved and Singapore's consent is required. This means that no sea craft will be able to travel under the crooked bridge.

We don't know what goes on behind those closed doors but the whole project from the beginning has been full of credibility issues.

For example, the authorities claim that a bridge will help flush out all the stagnant water in the narrow straits but have they taken a single measure to clean up any of the rivers that continue to spew all types of contaminants into the straits?

The original plan also includes a swing railway bridge and in time, there will be accidents with this design.

My estimate is that the Causeway jams will also recur on the new bridge lorries and buses eventually try to beat the queue as at present.
So we would have flushed over RM1 billion down the drain for this cosmetic construction.

Guess who's laughing all the way to the bank?



photo: Natural Bridge, Virginia, USA. A highway runs on top.