Smart!

I went to Cyberjaya yesterday and it is quite accustommed to me not to go back to Rawang immediately. Instead, I love to linger around the big bad capital for a while to wait until the rush hour is cleared before continuing my trip.

Anyway, from Cyberjaya I drove until UPM toll and from there to KL using the Sg. Besi highway. It was raining quite heavily so the crawl started earlier and I was a part of it. Then after the toll I remember that the SMART tunnel is already operational that day and it is still free so I decided to give it a try. Forgive me for the blurry picture, it's kindof hard to take picture while driving.. not to mention dangerous. Well, I guess that's the kind of work journalists do anyway.


From the SMART tunnel tollbooth it is obvious that they are pushing people to use Touch n' Go cards and SmartTags instead of paying cash since all booths are labeled as so. There are still a few tunais but they are labeled as Touch n' Go and tunai booths. Well, it make sense since if most people opt to pay cash, the crawl to enter the tunnel itself would create yet another jam.

The tunnel is quite okay with 2 lanes and a small emergency lane to the left and adequate lighting all along the stretch. Nevertheless, driving fast seemed quite awkward since the road is concrete as opposed to the smoother but higher mantainance tar. Well, no one should drive fast in tunnels anyway. I really don't want to play a real life enactment of Stallone's Daylight.. ever. Then again, the occasional sight of escape stairs might help to reasure those with faint hearts.

I admit that I'm partially claustrophobic so being too long in there quite creeps me and yeah, scenes from that Daylight movie does make the whole trip more and more nervewrecking. Then again, compared to the jam up above at the Kampung Pandan roundabout, it was so much better down there. Near the end of the tunnel, it diverged into two; one to Jalan Tun Razak and one to Jalan Sultan Ismail. I went for the former and found myself happily emerged out of the tunnel near the juction to Bukit Bintang. Now, that was fast..

I've heard that they are going to charge RM 4.00 for the tunnel sometime next month and for those who travel by that route daily, it is quite a hefty sum to bear. Even Rawang to Jalan Duta costs only RM 3.60. Nevertheless, for those who only happen to stumble upon that route once in a while, go ahead and try it. It's not Disneyland but it's kind of cool to know your way around the city.

Labels: Malaysia