Six locations of cut corridors are sometimes built on Dry Road

BINTULU, Sept. 22: The government has proposed the construction of cutting corridors at six locations along Bakun Road to improve the speed of vehicle movement, especially heavy vehicles, said Datuk Seri Alexander Nanta Linggi.

The Minister of Public Works said the proposal was a preliminary step before the road was upgraded to two full lanes which required higher costs.

The construction of the cutting lane allows heavy vehicles to use the leftmost lane at the site, thus giving space for light vehicles to cut more safely.

"A lot of heavy vehicles. If there is a cutting corridor, when you get to the cutting corridor the heavy vehicles go to the left one way so that light vehicles can cut to continue the journey", he said as he was discovered on a visit to the new construction project cutting corridor at six locations along Bakun Road, near here today.

According to him, the Pan Borneo to Bakun Smoke Junction of about 128 kilometers is over 30 years old and now faces various problems of damage from heavy vehicle use.

"It's been going on for over 30 years, it's getting old. We see a lot of problems with the level of this road and there is a lot of damage when we see heavy vehicles passing through this path", he added.

According to him, the movement of heavy-duty vehicles cannot be stopped as the route is important for local economic activities including palm plantation and farming sectors.

In the meantime, KKR plans to conduct a road condition assessment next year to assess overall road conditions across Sarawak.

So before that, we're going to make a proposal to do an assessment of the road condition so that we can get more detailed information about the road conditions all along this and not just here, across Sarawak Federal Roads. We'll do it next year", he said.

He added that RM28 million has been spent this year on road maintenance work in the area, while a proposed allocation of RM216 million for construction of six cutting corridor locations is still subject to approval in the upcoming Budget. - TVS