Jalan Wong Ah Fook stretch to reveal Sungai Segget as a major city attraction

JOHOR BARU: Removing a stretch of Jalan Wong Ah Fook to unveil Sungai Segget will be an engineering feat as the river will emphasise the beauty of the city and give it a revamped look.

Iskandar Regional Development Authority (Irda) chief executive officer Ismail Ibrahim said Sungai Segget would be the ‘heart’ of the Johor Baru city transformation project.

“The success in rehabilitating and rejuvenating Sungai Segget reflects how well we undertake the multi billion ringgit project,” he told StarMetro.

The RM1.8bil project includes RM200mil to reveal and clean up Sungai Segget, one of the dirtiest rivers in the country.

At present, Sungai Segget is unseen to the public eye as it flows beneath Jalan Wong Ah Fook in downtown Johor Baru.

Several years ago, RM6mil was spent to cover up 1.4km length and 25m width of the river.

Ismail said the growth of Johor Baru has been associated with Sungai Segget because in the olden days, it was a key port where ships came in to load and unload their goods.

He said there were lot of activities taking place along the river banks back then but with modernisation and modern transportation, the river became less important. Ismail added not many people including Johoreans knew why it was called Sungai Segget.

Segget refers to seagate as there was a watergate — a gate giving access to a river.

“But, Johoreans in the olden days could not properly pronounce the English word; hence in local lingo it became Segget, hence its pronounciation until today,” he said.

Ismail said Irda wanted to ‘unearth’ the good old Sungai Segget and the river would function as a tourism attraction like in Venice and Amsterdam.

He said the landscaping of the new Sungai Segget – themed “Green and Water” – would allow people to sit along the river banks for relaxation and flat bottom boats to pass through it.

Ismail said the cleaning of Sungai Segget would start from the Tropical Inn Hotel and up to the seagate or the watergate at the old Immigration, Custom and Quarantine complex.

He said with the opening of the river, Jalan Wong Ah Fook would be partially turned into a non-vehicular traffic road as Irda wanted to visitors to enjoy walking in the area instead of driving.

Ismail said Irda had talked with landowners planning to develop their properties along Sungai Segget not to have the backs of their buildings facing the river, but the facade facing towards it.

“We want to learn from the success story of the River Cheong in South Korea and as a town planner, I’m really confident that we can do it,” he said.

The 6km Cheonggyechon River in downtown Seoul was covered with concrete roads and elevated highways from 1948 until 1968.

In 2003, it underwent a US$1bil cleaning up project despite much criticism to remove the structures. After its opening in 2005, it has become popular among city denizens and tourists.