Bintulu roads ( Part 2)

Date taken : circa early 1980's ( colour photo)

Almost every single visitor in Bintulu in the 1980's right on till the early 2000 will notice this dual carriage highway. The incoming car on the right shows the road going north to the newly-opened up areas of Tanjung Kidurong which was the centre of physical and economic activities in early 1980's with the construction of three massive projects viz the Bintulu Port , the Malaysia Liquefied Natural Gas Plant (MLNG) and the ASEAN Bintulu Fertiliser Plant (ABF). These three major economic generator projects created the first boom in Bintulu. The road was like the above through three booms. But beginning last year the road was extensively re-designed from the roundabout to the junction near the Bintulu Divisional Mosque called Masjid Assyakirrin. The popular Angsana trees were planted on both sides of the highway from stumps and still looked lower than the electrical posts.

Date taken : 12 Dec'2010 ( Digital - Sony Cyber-shot)

Today, at the far end of the picture the former roundabout has become a traffic light junction. The dual- carriageway from the traffic junction to the Mosque junction has been altered to become a three-lane carriage way and the Mosque junction fitted with traffic lights thus making the central median narrower. Obviously the number of cars have more than quadrupled over the years. The trees have also over-topped the electrical posts. Today Bintulu is in the fourth boom era and the momentum that has developed over three decades of growth has made it able to ride the fourth boom with greater preparedness and gear itself to become an industrialised city by 2020. However, by all practical purposes it is now already an industrialised town but not given any city status just yet.