KUCHING: Phase one of the Sarawak Pan Borneo Highway (LPB) project will be fully opened in the second quarter of this year, said Works Minister Datuk Seri Alexander Nanta Linggi.
He said that, so far, the work progress of the project has reached 99 per cent.
"Phase one of the Sarawak LPB is expected to be fully opened in the second quarter of this year, except for the Lambir section (under work package 11) in Miri, which needs to be redesigned and it is expected to be ready in 2026,” he said in a statement today.
Phase one of the Sarawak LPB construction involves a total distance of 706 kilometres (km) from Telok Melano to Miri.
Meanwhile, Nanta said a meeting was held between his ministry and the Sarawak Public Works Department (JKR) yesterday, which discussed issues related to the maintenance of state and federal roads in Sarawak, especially involving the redline alignment.
He said the term redline refers to the existing original routes built before the construction of the LPB.
"In Sarawak, the redline alignment involves the areas of Kuching, Serian, Sibu, Bintulu, Julau and Miri. The standard of these redline routes, built previously, differs from the LPB and the quality of these redline routes needs to be upgraded.
"Phase one of the Sarawak LPB involves a distance of 786km, but there are road alignments of 136.7km that were not included in the LPB's construction and are now in poor condition. Several solution models were proposed at the meeting, and all these proposals will be studied in detail,” he said. - Bernama
