How to end the nightmare of Asia’s choked roads
The middle classes love cars but hate traffic
INCHING THROUGH Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s megalopolis, Banyan recently had a back-seat view of one of Asia’s monstrous traffic jams. His driver lived in Kota Kinabalu, a sleepy city far away across the water in Malaysian Borneo. So good was business in Kuala Lumpur that he flew in for weeks-long work stints. It seemed clear that much of the money is made sitting nearly stationary on Kuala Lumpur’s incongruously named expressways.
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This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Jam today, jam tomorrow”
From the January 25th 2025 edition
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