Sampah Nonsense

Shorter names for roads in housing estates

- Trashed by SampahMan @ 12:06 AM

The title was taken from an article in http://thestar.com.my dated May 20th 2005. Before I comment on this, it would be better to read the article first:

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IPOH: Road names in housing estates will be shortened to only two words so that they will not be confusing to the people.

Perak Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamad Tajol Rosli Ghazali said the state government had, in principle, agreed to the move.

“We will bring the matter to the state executive council for discussion,” he said after chairing the exco meeting yesterday.

He said there were road names which were long like Jalan Pakatan Jaya Satu and it would be shortened to Jalan Jaya Satu.

Other long names, he said, were Taman Perpaduan Koperasi, Hala Perpaduan Selatan Selatan 12.

He noted that road names in New York were not so confusing because they were identified by numbers. (Me: It is still confusing, sir. I've been there.)

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My 2 cents on this article:
It seems like the Perak state exco enjoys spending a lot of their time meeting and discussing on the matter of road names. By agreeing to the move (although in principle), the state government is sending out contradictory messages. I say this because last year around September, after a decision by the Perak state exco , a perfectly simple name like Jalan Kampar was changed to Jalan Tunku Bainun (2 words --> 3 words), Jalan Gopeng was renamed Jalan Dr Nazrin Shah (2 words --> 4 words), and Jalan Kuala Kangsar was changed to Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman (3 words --> 4 words).

With utmost respect for the royal family of the state, and also the founding father of Malaysia, I still feel that the state exco has taken liberties into their own hands by implementing these changes without the consultation of the residents in the city. This shows a lack of respect for the views of the residents, and rather unfortunately sounds like a case of sycophancy.

If the changes were for a good cause, like increased economic development for businesses on those streets, or a better image, then I think everyone would be glad for those changes to occur. The fact is, there does not seem to be any obvious advantage with these changes, and the disadvantages are:
- City council has to spend money on altering road signs.
- Businesses will have to spend time and money to change the addresses on name cards, official registration forms, etc.
- Everyone in Ipoh, who has lived with those original names for more than a few decades, will now have to remember the new names of the roads.
- Erasure of the history of Ipoh.

I mean, go ahead and name grand new roads whatever name you desire, Jalan Azizol Haniffah, Jalan Chan Kok Heng, Jalan V Saravanan, but don't go around changing the names of existing roads, especially those that have been around for years (too late for this, I suppose).

State exco, instead of wasting your time discussing on the trivial matter of road names, would more money and time be wiser spent thinking of how to further develop the state's economy and prevent bright young minds from leaving the state and making another state richer (brain drain anyone?)?

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