Roads Closed For Penang State’s Chinese New Year Festival

CERTAIN roads in George Town will be closed today for the state Chinese New Year Celebration at the Esplanade in Penang.

Chinese New Year Celebration on Penang (image credit)

Tanjong MP Ng Wei Aik said Beach Street, Church Street, King Street, Penang Street and Union Street would be closed from 7pm followed by Light Street from 9pm.

“The setup of the canopies will begin after the closure of the six streets.

“The closure will continue until tomorrow where Jalan Padang Kota Lama and Armenian Street will also be closed from noon till midnight tomorrow.

“Since Light Street is partially closed, traffic will be rerouted to Jalan Tun Syed Sheh Barakbah,” he said.

“Hence, parking will not be allowed along there from 9pm today to midnight tomorrow to ease traffic flow there,” he told a press conference in Komtar.

Ng added that more than 1,000 parking lots would be available for the public at several places including Union Street Multi-Storey Car Park, Fort Cornwallis, Beach Street Multi-Storey Car Park, Beach Street, King Street, Weld Quay and Downing Street.

“From 6am to midnight, the CAT Free Shuttle Bus is available every 30 minutes from Prangin Mall to Chulia Street.

“Those who want to avoid driving, they can use Grab, the online taxi service (formerly known as MyTeksi), by keying in the ‘PGCNY’ promo code to enjoy a RM8 discount,” he said.

Ng urged the public to handle the animated decorative lightings in Esplanade with care as repairs were already needed even though they were set up barely two weeks ago.

Penang Chine New Year Festivities in full swing (image credit)

He said the staff held by the Sun Wukong character was damaged while another character’s decorative firecracker was missing.

“The hand of one of the characters is also missing and at least 19 lanterns needed mending. We can only engage a local repairman to try fixing it as the sifu has gone back to China after the setup was completed,” he said.

The public should handle the decorations with care when taking photos as the decorations will be up until Feb 22.

Ng added that the decorations had proven to be very popular and visitors would flock to the area even until after midnight to take photos.

It was reported that the decorations were put up for the first time as part of the state’s Chinese New Year celebrations.

The decorative lightings including characters of the 12 Chinese Zodiac Animals, Monkey God (Sun Wukong) and a giant red Chinese character of the word chun (spring) as well as other festive characters were put up at cost of RM315,000.