Business Times : frontpage
Wednesday, March 10, 2010, 01.04 PM



No PLUS points for new highway plan (Mar 9)
PLUS Expressways Bhd (5052), the country's largest toll highway operator, has cautioned promoters of the second north-south highway, saying that the project is not viable currently. PLUS managing director Noorizah Abd Hamid said the existing North-South Expressway (NSE) was still underutilised and it would be costly to build a second one. She said the utilisation rate of the NSE was around 50 per cent in the central region and between 30 per cent and 35 per cent in the northern and southern regions at present. "After 20 years since it was built, the NSE is only congested at certain times of the day, certain days of the month, certain months of the year, especially during the festive seasons, and at certain towns. "We don't see the need (for a second north-south highway) because Malaysia does not have the traffic volume and our population is growing at only 3 per cent a year," Noorizah told Business Times at PLUS' headquarters in Selangor. Works Minister Datuk Shaziman...