THAT'S the view of Murali Sharma whose letter was published in the Straits Times Forum page on March 16th.

In the letter, he expressed his alarm over the haphazard development of the area whose roads, in contrast, are laid out in a tidy grid of parallel lorongs (roads), from G to N.

One of his grouses is that the character of the landed estate has suffered a big hit after an assortment of five- to six-storey apartment projects and three-storey homes, some with outlandish designs, sprouted in place of the old-time bungalows and semi-detached homes.

One result is that congestion has taken root as more people moved in, with the narrow roads a challenge for drivers to navigate given the many cars parked at the kerbs.

I have lived in Telok Kurau for about 20 years now and have seen how the sleepy estate has morphed into a densely-packed enclave.

I personally do not feel that the new properties are a big eyesore even if the design of some of the houses seemed calculated to maximise space but not aesthetics.

But I do agree that there's certainly more traffic.

Where I live - Lorong J - traffic is bad because the road is also used by drivers to get to Marine Parade and Bedok from Joo Chiat.

You won't find too many people in Lorong J spending much time outside their houses - to talk to neighbours or check out their plants - because of safety and pollution issues.

But this does not mean that residents have to fume in silent frustration and feel totally helpless.

Some five years back, I did bombard my MP, Mr Chan Soo Sen, about the problem via countless e-mails.

In the end, he called for a townhall meeting in Telok Kurau Park where a crowd - at least 100-strong - turned up to air the traffic issue.

Mr Chan gave me the mic for me to suggest solutions - making Lorong J one-way was among them.

There were even representatives from the Land Transport Authority who said they could go along with what made sense for the residents.

There was a good, sometimes, heated debate. 

Mr Chan called for a vote to decide if action was needed.

The feeling then was that there was no need for any drastic moves.

My feeling then was that a fair number of the people who voted for no action were not residents in Lorong J itself but in other roads leading off it, and hence, were not entirely affected by the traffic chaos.

Five years on, another resident, Sharma, has also decided that enough is enough and has vented his disgust.

The crux of the matter is that all Telok Kurau residents - both new and old - can effect change.

But we must be pragmatic. We cannot insist on going back to an idyllic past. 

We cannot be insular, ban new property projects and deny others a chance to make Telok Kurau their home.

However, we certainly can rally together and engage our MP to tackle quality-of-life issues.

Sure, we can all wait for funds to come via the government's private-estate upgrading scheme to improve the estate's infrastructure and revamp the roads.

Or we could once again call for a townhall meeting and come up with answers that might not even cost a cent to implement.