PAN BORNEO HIGHWAY

A couple of days ago, My nephew and I drove to Kimanis, a small town along the "Pan Borneo highway". There were heavy road work in progress in the first few kilometers of the highway..

 

 Driving through Penampang area.

 Entering the "Highway". 

The Pan Borneo highway also known as trans Borneo highway is a single carriage way road network on Borneo island connecting the two Malaysia states of Sabah and Sarawak with Brunei. The entire length of the highway is almost 2,239 kilometers.  Sabah and Sarawak joined Malaysia in 1963, very little has been done to improve the road. Only in 2013, the Malaysia Federal Government announced this highway to be upgraded to dual carriage way.

 

According to a friend of mine in the Public Works department, the upgrading work has started 3 years back and not a single kilometer has been fully upgraded to dual carriage.

 

Look like this stretch is almost completed. Hopefully will open to traffic both ways soon.

 

 Heavy hills cutting could be seen along the existing road.

 

 

 

They should construct tunnels instead of leveling the hills. It could improve travel reliability, safety and the environment.

A good acreage of padi (rice) fields was filled up with earth for the construction of the new dual carriage highway.  

 

 

 

 The end of the first 4-5 kilometers under upgrading. It's still along way to go.

The current congested single carriage "highway" all the way to Brunei and Sarawak.

This is the road map of the highway. We drove through the first 4-5 kilometers as shown in the pictures. Can the project be completed by 2022? I doubt it. Perhaps, in 2040?