Burning Question on Proposed DASH Highway

By: Admin

WE, residents and JMB/JMC committee members of Damansara Perdana and Mutiara Damansara wonder if we have picked the right MP and assemblyman to walk the talk with remedies for our community’s daily challenges, especially on the controversial proposed Damansara-Shah Alam Highway (DASH) project which we, as direct stakeholders affected by it, are strongly objecting to.

Our meetings and messages to our elected representatives failed in producing any results or resolving the burning issue of DASH.

It has been four years and we still have not received an official statement or press release from the Selangor government once and for all on the decision to stop the DASH alignment from going through Damansara Perdana.

Bukit Lanjan assemblyman Elizabeth Wong mentioned that an alternative route out of Damansara Perdana and Mutiara Damansara would be proposed and it would be in her list of priorities to raise it, discuss and resolve it with Selangor Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali.

We are now in 2016 and the Selangor government has not provided any confirmation that the realignment will take place as proposed, other than pushing the buck to residents and Malaysian Highway Authority.

Here, we are reading statements from Prolintas that the DASH project will proceed with the current alignment and the advertisements for tender are openly conducted in major newspapers.

Countless times, technical flaws have been pointed out on the current alignment by us residents from Mutiara Damansara and Damansara Perdana.

Yet, the Selangor government is keeping mum about the issues raised and refuse to refute or criticise these actions and statements that involve a controversial highway running through the state which will have a profound and adverse impact on the residents living along the proposed alignment.

To add salt to our wound, we are now seeing contractors conducting road surveys on our streets on a regular basis and they have admitted the work conducted is for the DASH project.

If Pakatan Rakyat truly has the accountaibility towards the people’s grievances, this burning DASH issue would have been resolved in a short span of time with correction to Prolintas statement immediately and a firm decision made by the MB that Pakatan was against highways crossing through residential townships.

Yes, we are aware of the role this highway plays to sustain Selangor development plans and possibly to maintain a healthy cash flow in the long run.

That is why we are not entirely against the construction of DASH but we, the residents humbly request for the highway to be realigned out of Mutiara Damansara and Damansara Perdana as to most of us, this is our only home and these two townships have no place for a six-lane elevated highway in its midst.

It is absurd and not ethically right to allow such a monstrous highway into such a dense township based on the proposed plan and diagram presented, which has clear measurement of flaws.

We have been liberal, patient and understanding all this while but not anymore. To us lay people, the results of the promises and pledges made by our elected representatives is akin to our view of the party and government that is suppose to serve the community.

Source: thestar.com.my