Monday, June 01, 2009

Learn from Miri

I went to Miri on last Friday, May 29, to attend the fund raising dinner organized by the DAP Miri Branch.


I like Miri, a city with a population of only 30,000, since the first time I visited this serene town sometime 10 years ago. The Miri airport is just 10-minute drive from the city center and I love the shady raintrees along the way.


The town centre is small by any standard of a city but the streets are almost impeccably clean and neat. The road users are relatively patient compared to those in other cities in Malaysia.


I noticed that the tarmac surfacing the road in then city seems to be containing high composition of tar. The road surface are therefore shining especially at night. It also absords noise from the friction between the tyres and the road.


This always reminds me of my first impression of Washington D.C. upon my arrival there in 1996. I was wondering why the streets in Washington D.C. were relatively quite despite the busy traffic. After some observations, I concluded that it must be due to the high content of tar in the tarmac.

When I came back on Saturday morning, I made a special observation on our roads here in West Malaysia. I think I am right though it may sound unscientific.



The only regret is that I always spend less than 24 hours in Miri. I promise myself that I will spend more time in my next trip and perhaps I will also travel to Mulu Cave.


Meanwhile, let us learn from Miri, especially the Municipal Councils like Klang. A trip to Miri will help.

7 comments:

wookies said...

YB Teng,

Make sure you employ a good landscape architect in your team. The former mayor did a good job and was an architect by profession.

I don't like the road though; very undulating compared to KL road.

A Mirian.

近朱者赤 said...

Fair statement. Even though there are still a few problems, such as open burning, cleanliness in senandin & lutong, blocked drainage and flooding, Miri city is well managed by SUPP overall. I think all cities in Peninsular should learn from them, not only Klang.

Anonymous said...

all of us should realize that to limit the SPM exam to only 10 subjects will put some of the Chinese students in the state of dilemma especially those who are in the science stream, they will have to drop Chinese Language in the exam because after taking all the compulsory and necessary subjects + Chinese, the total number of subject is definitely more than 10? YB Teng, can you please raise this problem in the Parliament ? Can you help our young generation?

Teng Chang Khim said...

I am not a Member of Parliament but I believe our Members of Parliament in charge of education do understand this problem and will raise it in Parliament.

Anonymous said...

The road is as good as the head of the local council head. The Mayor or council head must be dedicated, have the political and adminstrative will to improve on the existing road conditions.

Councils and Municipalities elsewhere, I observed that the council heads do not know what is happening at the staff level and they just let these staff run their section as if everything is OK.

The Heads of department hardly knows what is happening at ground level. There must be " management by wandering around " to get the feel of things.

You are right that the tar content is higher for better road condition as tar acts as a binding agent and I therefore proposed that even for patching up of potholes , a layer of tar had to sprayed on the pothole before putting in the " stone aggregate/tar mix " and then apply compaction.

Hope the big town councils in Selangor adopt this procedure and ensure that supervisors really supervised the job before authorisation for payment.

Moreover, there must be a certain guarantee period before the contractor is paid the full sum.

Anonymous said...

DEAR YB, i'm admirer for you for quite sometime. recently wat i can say u really disappointed me. Ya, is true. i don't understand why u keep on fighting with the ex-exco, or ex(i don't really care wat their name is) try to prove or get some result instead keep on telling people that they did something. Try to forgive people and it will help you to gain something from your enemy. Wat ever is it, i wish you goodluck in the future, and i can't see the future of DAP lies..REALLY...

Anonymous said...

actually for me now, DAP is starting to be a joke for me. Maybe vote for a change is just a wrong step for the people. you guys didn't really making a change of the government, by getting headline everyday in the newspapers...wonder wat you fighting nowadays...