A trial and error job<\/p>\n
Sometimes Jakarta, the overcrowded national capital of 10
\nmillion people, becomes a laboratory where trial and error
\nexperiments are conducted, a consequence of the poor planning
\nthat goes into the Herculean task of solving the city's problems.
\nThe city authorities have now come up with a fresh plan for
\nreducing the burden that endless traffic congestion imposes on
\nthe people. Early this week, the City Council approved an
\nallocation of Rp 54 billion (US$5.4 million) from the 2002 city
\nbudget for a busway project connecting Blok M in South Jakarta
\nwith downtown Kota in the west. Deputy chairman of the council's
\nCommission D for development affairs, Ali Imran Husein, claimed
\nthat the project would improve public transportation in Jakarta.<\/p>\n
The core of the problem is that there are simply too many cars
\nin the city, which has only 6,500 kilometers of road. Another
\nscary statistic is that the number of vehicles increases by 18
\npercent every year while the road network grows by only four
\npercent. The abundance of vehicles means that traffic jams grow
\nworse and worse every day. This situation has seen vehicles move
\nmore and more slowly from year to year, reducing the number of
\nbus trips. This also causes the condition of the city's cars to
\ndeteriorate more rapidly while making operational costs higher
\nand profits lower. The poor condition of the buses and the inept
\nservice offered by their drivers have convinced many people of
\nthe need to own their own car. This will in turn worsen the
\nalready choking traffic jams, which some say are among the worst
\nin the world.<\/p>\n
As part of the project, which is due to start in October of
\nthis year, the authorities plan to cut down hundreds of trees
\nalong the Blok M-Kota route, especially on Jl. Sisingamangaraja,
\nJl. Jendral Sudirman and Jl. MH. Thamrin, in order to make way
\nfor the development of bus shelters and other facilities for the
\nnew transportation system. According to the city's plan, buses
\nwill ply new routes to be established in the roads' center lanes,
\nwhich will be dotted with new bus stops. Passengers alighting
\nfrom the buses will be able to cross the road using pedestrian
\nbridges. How commuters are meant to get to Blok M, for example,
\nto catch a bus, is another question. They are not supposed to
\ndrive their own cars there because of a lack of parking spaces.<\/p>\n
Despite these problems, many people in both the City Council
\nand City Hall are said to be very proud of the \"new masterpiece\".
\nBut it was heartening to hear that a number of councillors have
\nexpressed concerns that the project, designed by transportation
\nexperts from the Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University, could
\nfail.<\/p>\n
Outside the corridors of power many others have predicted that
\nthe project will cause more traffic jams and further
\nenvironmental damage. The first casualties of the project will
\nbe, of course, private cars. And the congestion will remain. So
\nwhere is the wisdom?<\/p>\n
And the construction of more pedestrian bridges? Everyone
\nknows that Jakartans are very reluctant to use these facilities,
\nand will only do so if forced. They prefer to cross the busy and
\ndangerous roads. We would envisage that the new bridges along the
\nbusway will serve partly as decoration. Unlike Singaporeans or
\nMalaysians, it will take at least two more generations before our
\nnation makes its people respect the rules. Building iron fences
\nin the middle of the road will serve no purpose, because
\npedestrians have a particular talent for tearing them down.<\/p>\n
The debate reminds us that Jakarta's real problem is its
\nstatus as an overpopulated metropolis full of poor people with
\nlow levels of discipline. There are also too many rotten city
\nbuses and private cars. And arrogant land transportation
\nofficials. In most cases, the officials have been too
\nsupercilious to retreat from the failures of their trial and
\nerror experiments. The three-in-one traffic system along Jl.
\nJendral Sudirman -- introduced many years ago -- has long been a
\nshameful exercise, in which poor young boys join others in
\nflagrantly flouting the rules. This disgrace has lately been
\ncombined with the failure of the newly-introduced one-way traffic
\nsystem from Jl. Sultan Iskandar Muda and Jl. Bintaro Jaya in
\nSouth Jakarta, which has almost totally failed. All that remains
\nthere now is the indifference of its architect.<\/p>\n
Returning to the new plan to ease congestion along the city's
\nmain north-south thoroughfare, we regret to say that it looks
\nlike an example of development through cannibalism. Overhauling
\nand reconstructing the expensive thoroughfares, built at the cost
\nof billion of rupiahs, and cutting down trees that were planted
\n\"with blood and sweat\", even though the benefits remain
\nquestionable, is a show of recklessness.<\/p>\n
And the planned procurement of some 50 air-conditioned buses,
\nthe operation of which will be later auctioned off to private
\nconcerns, reeks of corruption, collusion and nepotism and will
\nsurely provoke public suspicions, in the absence of effective
\nsupervision in the bureaucracy.
\n So, it would be wise for the city authorities to abort the plan
\nbecause it will only benefit a few people to the cost of many.<\/p>",
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