Bus passengers complain of messy state of terminals

Bus passengers complain of messy state of terminals

JAKARTA (JP): Many passengers returning to the capital after
spending their Idul Fitri holidays in their home towns denounced
the city administration for failing to keep clean the public
facilities and sanitation at bus terminals in the capital.

They said terminals in Kampung Rambutan and Pulogadung in East
Jakarta were full of garbage and smelly, creating an unhealthy
environment for people who used public facilities while waiting
for buses.

Sanitation workers at the terminals admitted that they could
not cope with the heaps of trash, which markedly increased a few
weeks before the Idul Fitri holiday, as large crowds of
passengers littered the terminals.

Kampung Rambutan terminal -- located on a 14-hectare plot, 8.7
hectares of which is designed for public facilities, including
a waiting hall, offices, restaurants and toilets -- provides
intercity buses that carry passengers to destinations in West and
Central Java as well as cities on the island of Sumatra.

Pulogadung terminal is mainly for passengers going to Central
and East Java cities.

Data from the terminal show that a few weeks before and after
the Lebaran (local name for Idul Fitri) holiday, the terminal was
thronged by about 25,000 travelers daily.

Some passengers at the Kambung Rambutan terminal said many
people littered in the area because there were not enough
waste bins and a lack of cleaning workers at the station.

Sunanto, who was waiting for a bus that would take him to
Garut, a West Java city known for its clean environment, told
The Jakarta Post that the city administration should have
provided more dustbins and garbage collectors in anticipation of
the sharp increase of passengers during Lebaran.

"The City Land Transportation Control Agency merely removes
the garbage from the terminal to the parking lot nearby, and does
not solve the problem of waste disposal," he remarked

Parno, a local garbage man, said he was ordered only to clean
up the trash in the terminal and that he had no idea where the
piles of garbage near the parking lot would be taken to.

"It is not easy to keep the area clean with all the passengers
during the Lebaran holiday and many of them do not even bother to
throw the waste into the waste bins," he said, complaining
that more cleaning workers should have been employed during
holiday.

Besides sanitation, another problem that raised passengers'
concern was health.

A health officer at the terminal, Meilan Sihotang, said an
average of 15 people were treated daily at the terminal's
makeshift health center for dehydration, gastritis and diarrhea.
The center was set up by the city administration with the help of
several organizations to provide a health service for the public.

"Before Lebaran, when most people were fasting, we treated a
lot of patients who suffered from dehydration and gastritis,"
Meilan said, adding that most passengers were not in good health
and could not stand being in a messy crowd.

Meanwhile, officials at both terminals said that until Tuesday
the number of inbound passengers exceeded that of travelers
leaving the capital for their home towns.

A driver of an intercity bus said there were only 50
passengers leaving the capital compared to 70 arriving in the
city. Another bus driver confirmed that his bus carried only 15
passengers to destinations in Central Java against 80 coming to
Jakarta.

Both drivers expected the number of inbound passengers to
reach its peak at the end of this week.(06)