KOTA KINABALU: Road assets in Sabah have increased 10-fold over the past five decades, said Public Works Department (PWD) director Datuk John Anthony.
He disclosed that currently the state’s road length is 21,136 kilometres, compared to only 2,100 km in 1963.
“The total length comprised of 1,501 km federal roads, 10,747 km state roads under PWD’s jurisdiction of which only half are sealed, and another 8,888 km of state roads that are under the care of local authorities of which about 39 per cent are sealed,” he said, adding that the economic value of the road assets under the department’s jurisdiction was over RM15 billion, excluding land cost.
He said for the past 50 years, Sabah made tremendous efforts in developing and improving the road network to enable efficient development of the state’s infrastructure.
“Further development of the state road network is expected to continue along with the maintenance and rehabilitation activities, and as the road assets infrastructure increases, so will the government’s investment in road infrastructures,” he said in his speech when launching a dialogue on Overloading on PWD Road Network here yesterday.
He said through the dialogue, they hope to highlight the issues of road damages due to overloading activities and find a holistic solution to curb overloading activities, improve usage and road safety.
Anthony stressed that overloaded vehicles were very common in Sabah, especially lorries carrying oil palm fruits and timber logs.
“The overloading culture is so rampant that the roads get damaged faster than we can repair them. The cost of repairing a damaged road is between RM1 million and RM2 million per km, and constructing a new road costs between RM3 million and RM4 million per km.
“Currently, the backlog is RM2 billion to repair Sabah’s roads. The lifespan of these roads is reduced due to overloading,” he said.
Anthony explained that these roads were built to last up to a decade before it needs repairs, but now, due to the overloading of vehicles, repairs and maintenance were needed in just within three years.
“Overloaded vehicles can cause serious damage to all roads and can also become a traffic hazard, especially when required to brake as additional braking distance is required. This situation is aggravated when negotiating steep downhill slopes and sharp curves … it is not the wheel load but the damaging power of the wheel load that is the primary concern,” he said.
Anthony said the relation between the vehicle axle load and road damage works out to the power of four, and realizing this, the government implemented axle load limits.
The legal permissible weight limits and dimensions of vehicles in List I, II, III and so on, shall comply with the provisions as stipulated in Weight Restriction (Federal Road) (Amendment) Orders 2003, Road Transport Act 1987.
“Sabah roads are listed under List II and III, where the maximum axle load ranged from six tons (6,000 kilogrammes) for a four wheeled single axle to 38 tonnes (38,000 kg) for articulated vehicle with six axles in Sabah as compared to 12 tons and 44 tons respectively, for the same axle configuration and vehicle dimension in Peninsular Malaysia,” he said.
He added that the differences in the maximum allowable loads for Sabah and Peninsular Malaysia are due to the lower carrying capacity of the bridges in Sabah as reported in the National Axle Load Study.
“There are rules and regulations and also enforcement agencies to curb these overloading activities, but it cannot prevent all the damage to the road. We hope that even without enforcement, road users can be responsible by observing the rules and regulations,” he said.
He added that PWD needs about RM700 million to repair and replace a total of 62 bridges on federal roads in Sabah. Work, he said, will be carried out in stages, as allocations channeled are still not sufficient.
“To date, we have only received RM33 million to do repairs on bridges and we will be applying for more,” he said, adding that the overall figure would be expanded in the 11th Malaysia Plan.
He said all these bridges needed to be repaired before the road stretches in Sabah can be upgraded to Category One, such as those available in the Peninsula.
Meanwhile, Anthony said the PWD Open Day will be held from October 22 to 26 in the city.