Cheaper toll charges on Kesas Highway

For Class One vehicles (with two axles and three or four wheels, excluding taxis), the new toll charge will be RM2, down by 20 sen from RM2.20.

For Class Two vehicles (with two axles and six wheels, excluding buses), the new toll charge will be RM3, down by 30 sen from RM3.30.

For Class Three vehicles (with three or more axles), the new toll charge will be RM4, down by 40 sen from RM4.40.

For Class Four vehicles (taxis), the new toll charge will be RM1, down by 10 sen from RM1.10 and for Class Five vehicles (buses), the new toll charge will be RM1.50, down by 20 sen from RM1.70.

Toll is charged at three points along the 34.5-km Kesas Highway, which stretches from the Sri Petaling interchange in Kuala Lumpur to the Pandamaran interchange in Klang.

These are at the Awan Besar East (Kuala Lumpur-bound) and Awan Besar West (Subang Jaya/Klang-bound), Sunway and Kemuning toll plazas.

Shaziman said 298,000 daily users of the highway stood to benefit from the reduced toll charges.

"The toll charges will not be raised until 2016," he told reporters after a visit to see construction of an elevated U-turn at Km37.5 of the Kesas Highway, here.

Shaziman said the reduction in the toll charges was part of the restructuring of the toll rates on the highway managed by Kesas Sdn Bhd.

Shaziman said the reduction in the toll charges would have a positive impact on people living in the Shah Alam, Petaling Jaya, Subang Jaya, Klang and surrounding areas.

He said the toll charges on the Kesas Highway were to have been raised to RM3 (for Class One vehicles) but Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak decided against it because it would place a financial burden on the people.

"The waiving of the proposed increase (to RM3) resulted in the government having to fork out RM86 million to the highway concessionaire, at 80 sen per vehicle, in 2012," he said.

Shaziman said that since Najib took over as the prime minister, the toll charges on several highways had been restructured, for example the North-South Expressway and the Cheras-Kajang Expressway, also known as the Grand Saga Expressway, while toll was removed altogether on the Metramac East-West Link Highway.

"The government will continue to negotiate and convince highway concessionaires to restructure their toll charges, but only after a survey has been done to determine the increase in traffic on any highway," he said.

Shaziman also asked Kesas to speed up the construction of the elevated U-turn and have it ready ahead of the scheduled completion date of March 2014.