Jalan Damansara Explained

Country:MYS
Jalan Damansara
Direction A:North
Terminus A:Bandar Sri Damansara
Destinations:Bandar Utama
Taman Tun Dr Ismail
Damansara Town Centre
Damansara Heights
Bukit Persekutuan
KL Sentral
Junction:Kuala Lumpur Middle Ring Road 1 (Lebuhraya Sultan Iskandar)
Jalan Maarof
Damansara–Puchong Expressway
Sprint Expressway
Direction B:Southwest
Terminus B:Jalan Sultan Hishamuddin

Jalan Damansara is a major road in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. One of the oldest roads in the city, it currently serves as a link between the Damansara sections of Petaling Jaya and Kuala Lumpur (from Bandar Sri Damansara through to the Petaling Jaya suburbs of Bandar Utama and Damansara Utama and then to the heart of Kuala Lumpur through its suburbs of Taman Tun Dr. Ismail and Bukit Damansara).

Name

Jalan Damansara was named after a small harbour-like settlement, which no longer exists, that was located near the mouth of the Damansara River along the Klang River. The harbour was known as Labuhan Sara  - Labuhan means a place for ships to anchor, while sara can be taken to mean "departure" or "embarkation" (related to the word bersara meaning retirement). The name Damansara may have been originally Indian; in Hindustani, daman means "foothills" while sara may mean either "a mansion of wealth", or "water" in Sanskrit.

History

Origin

Damansara Village was a popular place for ships to anchor for those who used the Klang River as a means of travel between the port town of Klang and the mining settlement of Kuala Lumpur. Although many boats can go up to the junction of Gombak River and Klang River in Kuala Lumpur, the steam boats used by the British to cut the travel time between Klang and Kuala Lumpur could only travel up to Damansara. In order to reach Kuala Lumpur, travellers would then need to traverse overland via a track, established in 1873, connecting Damansara and Kuala Lumpur through the jungles and hills of the Damansara (including the area currently known as Damansara Heights). Around the mid-1870s, after steam boats were introduced, construction began on an unmetalled road between the harbour of Damansara to Brickfields and Kuala Lumpur. This road would become known as Damansara Road. The road was 15.5 miles long, and Brickfields at the end of the road then become known as Batu Limabelas meaning "15th mile". By 1878, 12 miles of the earth road had been completed, with the remaining 3.5 miles built by Yap Ah Loy.[1]

In 1880, the state capital of Selangor was moved to Kuala Lumpur. Following this, In 1895, the existing Damansara Road was extended to link the suburb of Brickfields (then the only exit and entry point into KL) and the city centre of Kuala Lumpur. The roads currently known today as Jalan Raja (facing the Sultan Abdul Samad Building) and Jalan Sultan Hishamuddin was known as a stretch of road called the Gombak Road, named after its crossing over the Gombak River. The extension included the Jalan Sultan Hishamuddin stretch of the then Gombak Road and Cenotaph Road (today known as Jalan Tugu), ending at a wooden bridge crossing the Klang River at Market Street (today known as Leboh Pasar Besar). This linked the then Damansara Road to Brickfields Road (known today as Jalan Travers), which ran to Brickfields.[2]

Damansara Road today

Not much remains of the original Damansara Road today. It eventually became a pioneer road of the Damansara–Puchong Expressway and the Damansara Link of the Sprint Expressway. Because sections of the road parts of these highways, Jalan Damansara currently exists in fragments at several locations. The intervening sections of the original road now link with stretches of the road that form these highways at different locations:

List of interchange/junctions

kmExitInterchange/junctionsToRemarks
Sri Damansara–TTDIsee also
Damansara–Puchong Expressway
Bukit Lanjan–Penchala–TTDIWest
Bukit Lanjan
Jalan Bukit Lanjan 2
Jalan Bukit Lanjan 4
Jalan Bukit Lanjan 4/1
Jalan Bukit Lanjan 6

Wisma Mofaz
Petronas

Kampung Sungai Penchala
Jalan Sungai Penchala

TTDI
Jalan Burhanuddin Helmi
North bound
TTDI-LDP Damansara–Puchong Expressway

Southwest
Kelana Jaya
Petaling Jaya
Puchong
Putrajaya
Cyberjaya
Interchange
TTDI town centre Shell
Petronas
DBKL branch office
South bound
Taman Tun Dr IsmailEast
Jalan Tun Mohd Fuad
Taman Tun Dr Ismail
Plaza VADS (formerly Menara IBM)
Menara LGB

TTDI wet market

T-junctions
SS 20West
Jalan SS 20/20
Jalan SS 20/21
KPJ Damansara Specialist Hospital
North bound
Jalan Damansara Lama Exit Menara Glomac North bound
Jalan Wan KadirEast
Jalan Wan Kadir
T-junctions
TTDI MRT station TTDI MRT station
TTDI–Damansara LinkSoutheast
Sprint Expressway (Damansara Link)
Petaling Jaya
Damansara Town Centre
Kuala Lumpur
Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC)
Junctions
SS 20West
Jalan SS 20/20
Jalan SS 20/21
T-junctions
SS 20–Damansara Town Centresee also
Sprint Expressway (Damansara Link)
Damansara Town CentreDamansara CityTrumpet interchange
Lower DamansaraEast
Taman SA
Jalan Buluh Perindu

West
Damansara Heights International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) Institute of Islamic Banking & Finance (IIiBF)
Lorong Mempoyan
Jalan Jelutong
North bound
Instac
Lower DamansaraSouth
Bukit Persekutuan
Jalan Terrenganu
Jalan Pulau Pinang
North bound
Galeria Sri PerdanaGaleria Sri Perdana
T-junctions
Lower Damansara–Muzium Negarasee also
Kuala Lumpur Middle Ring Road 1
Muzium Negara–Jalan Sultan Hishamuddinsee also
Jalan Bangsar

Notes and References

  1. The Growth of Kuala Lumpur and the Malay Communities in Selangor Before 1880. https://web.archive.org/web/20160815212619/http://myrepositori.pnm.gov.my/bitstream/123456789/4317/1/JB1869_GOKL.pdf. 15 August 2016 . Gullick . J.M. . Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society . LXIII . June 1990 . 1. 23–24 .
  2. Book: Isa . Mariana . Kaur . Maganjeet . 15 September 2015. Kuala Lumpur Street Names: A Guide To Their Histories and Meanings . Singapore . Marshall Cavendish International Asia Pte Ltd . 82 . 9789814721448 .