Iskandar Puteri is a neighbourhood in Johor Bahru that was previously known as Nusajaya. Renamed in January 2016 to Iskandar Puteri, it is located close to the Malaysia-Singapore borders. As a centre of administration, Kota Iskandar is located in Iskandar Puteri, as are the Johor Chief Minister’s Office and Johor State Legislative Assembly.
Iskandar Puteri is a well planned city that enjoys excellent accessibility to all the different zones of Iskandar Malaysia – which is the southern tip of Peninsular Malaysia. Residents of Iskandar Puteri hence enjoy easy access to both the Second Link Expressway as well as the Lebuhraya Sultan Iskandar. The Sultan Abu Bakar CIQ Complex is approximately only 45 kilometres away via the former, and Bangunan Sultan Ibrahim (BSI) CIQ Complex 30 kilometres away from the latter.
The Malaysian city of Johor Bahru, with heavy traffic on the Johor-Singapore Causeway at dusk.
Well planned and built, the smaller roads are well connected to main roads and highways to ensure smooth transit. The main roads that serve Iskandar Puteri are Lebuhraya Bukit Indah, and the Iskandar Coastal Highway that was previously known as Johor Bahru West Coast Parkway – which comprises of Persiaran Sultan Ismail, Persiaran Sultan Abu Bakar which was formerly known Jalan Skudai, Jalan Abu Bakar and Lebuhraya Sultan Iskandar.
There are a number of new roads that are going to be built to facilitate access to the new housing developments as well, if the housing developments are close enough to highways or institutions of importance. For example, the developer of One Sentral will be building an extension linking One Sentral to Educity and Kota Iskandar, cutting down travel time between the two places from 15 minutes to a mere 5 minutes.
Getting out of the state of Johor Bahru also proves to be easy for the residents of Iskandar Puteri, with their easy connectivity to the North-South Highway via the Johor Bahru-Singapore Second Link Expressway.
While the roads in Johor are well linked and built, public transportation is on the lacking side. A private vehicle is hence highly recommended to moving around.
There are however government initiatives to begin implementing public transport around the city area, such as the Iskandar Puteri shuttle bus that ferries passengers between the Larkin Bus Terminal and Iskandar Puteri. The bus company is operated by Handal Indah, departing from Larkin from 6.30am to 7.45am daily, and from 6.30am to 8.30pm from Puteri Harbour daily at every hour.
Residential feeder busses are also part of the future plans, and water ferries are to begin operating from the Danga Bay, Stulang and Puteri Harbour ferry terminals.
Connecting Johoreans to Singapore seamlessly are also high speed transit in the planning, where the proposed Rail Transit System (RTS) will link Johor Bahru to Singapore seamlessly while avoiding traffic congestion. And with the Bus Rapid Transit in the planning, downtown Johor Bahru will be connected to Skudai, Puteri Iskandar and Johor Jaya with ease.
Aiming to reduce traffic congestion between the borders on a long term basis, residents of Johor can look forward to more convenient options of crossing the borders in the future.