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The traffic jam at Kea Farm is real — it is Cameron Highlands’ main agricultural market, where produce lorries and tourist vehicles converge daily on a single strip of road heading toward Brinchang.
According to one environmental group, the proposed fix is somewhere else entirely.
The Regional Environmental Awareness Cameron Highlands (REACH) issued a press statement this week challenging the Public Works Department (JKR) over a proposed bypass connecting Royal Lily to Villa Dahlia in Cameron Highlands.
The proposed alignment, REACH states, runs through or near the slopes of Gunung Jasar — a highland area with slopes exceeding 1,500 metres above sea level, at least five streams, and ecosystems REACH describes as a potential wildlife movement corridor linking Gunung Jasar to Gunung Brinchang.
REACH president A. Dilip Martin said the group’s position is not that the road should not be built.
The position is that no one has publicly explained why this particular road, in this particular location, is the answer to a traffic problem located elsewhere.
The Question Nobody Has Answered In Public
Kea Farm is a busy agricultural and tourist hub in Cameron Highlands.
During peak seasons and public holidays, vehicle congestion along its main access routes is a documented and recurring problem.
The proposed Royal Lily–Villa Dahlia bypass is understood to be under feasibility study by JKR.
REACH states the alignment may involve slope-cutting and forest clearing on Gunung Jasar.
REACH’s central challenge: if the congestion originates at Kea Farm, what is the technical basis for a solution that opens a new alignment through a separate mountain area entirely?
The group has posed five formal questions to JKR and the Department of Environment (DOE), including whether a detailed Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) covering slope stability, landslide risk, flash flood potential and cumulative environmental impact has been conducted, and if so, whether the findings will be made public.
REACH also asks whether the proposed alignment encroaches on or borders a Permanent Reserved Forest and whether it meets all relevant legal requirements.
What REACH Says Should Be Examined First
Before any decision on the bypass proceeds, REACH calls for serious consideration of alternatives focused on Kea Farm itself.
The options listed include:
- Multi-storey parking facilities at suitable locations
- Improved pedestrian walkways and passenger drop-off areas
- Systematic management of tourist buses and tour vehicles
- Strengthened parking enforcement during peak periods
- Improved public transportation and tourism infrastructure
REACH acknowledges these options also require feasibility studies.
The group argues they are lower-risk interventions that address the problem at its source—and that they were not publicly ruled out before the bypass option advanced.
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Cut The Slopes, Risk The Villages Below
Gunung Jasar is not a cleared or degraded area.
REACH states the mountain has at least five clean streams, flora and fauna of conservation value, and a role as a potential wildlife corridor linking Gunung Jasar to Gunung Brinchang.
Any slope-cutting or forest clearing, the group warns, risks altering drainage patterns, destabilising slopes, and increasing residents’ exposure to landslides, debris flows, and flash floods downstream.
REACH has formally called on JKR, DOE and all relevant agencies to publicly explain the need for and alignment of the bypass, disclose the EIA status and all relevant technical studies, conduct comprehensive assessments of slope stability, hydrology, biodiversity and public safety, and organise public consultations with residents, independent experts and environmental NGOs.
The group states that no final decision and no irreversible works should proceed until those conditions are met.
JKR Says The Road Is Still On Paper, A Signboard On Site Says February 2026
JKR and the Ministry of Works issued a clarification on 13 September, following localised weather incidents in Tanah Rata, stating the bypass project remains strictly at the design and feasibility assessment stage.
Aside from routine maintenance on existing paths, no major physical construction work or forest clearing has begun on the primary alignment.
A project signboard photographed on site names Ahmad Zaki Resources Berhad (AZRB) as contractor, lists the Ministry of Works as client, and shows a start date of 16 February — seven months before JKR’s September clarification.
The completion target is 15 August, 2029.
The project’s Reka dan Bina, or Design & Build, structure explains the apparent contradiction: the February date marks the contract’s formal legal mobilisation, not the start of physical earthworks.
Under this framework, the engineering team spends the early months conducting site surveys, mapping terrain, and finalising blueprints before any machinery moves.
JKR’s claim that the project remains “on paper” means the contractor is still working through that mandatory pre-construction design phase, and no heavy excavation or slope clearing has begun on the primary alignment.
The Bypass That Bypasses The Bottleneck
The ministry adds that the project was formally approved on the basis of a September 2020 traffic study, which concluded that a bypass is necessary to pull transit traffic away from congested town centres entirely.
The full scope includes a 3.3km two-lane bypass from Royal Lily to Villa Dahlia, widening works on FT59 toward Kea Farm, and a one-way loop system.
The existing road between those same two endpoints — Royal Lily to Villa Dahlia via Route 59 — is already 3.8km and takes 10 minutes by the fastest available route.
The bypass would save roughly 0.5km through the slopes of a forested mountain, serving as the flagship piece of a massive RM430 million master infrastructure package that also includes widening existing federal roads leading up to Kea Farm.
Whether that trade-off is justified by traffic volume data beyond the 2020 study has not been made public.
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TRP has reached out to JKR for comment on the project’s cost justification, environmental assessments, and current construction status.
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RM430 Million To Save 0.5km? Cameron Highlands’ Bypass Plan And The Mountain In The Way
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