Expert team submits study on city traffic

Expert team submits study on city traffic

JAKARTA (JP): A team of experts from the Bandung Technology
Institute has submitted its study of traffic conditions in
Jakarta with a number recommendations on how to overcome the
congestion.

Ofyar Z Tamin, who headed the special team on transportation
technology, told the Antara news agency that some of the
recommendations of the 1993 study on the environmental impact of
traffic have been implemented by housing developers and shopping
malls.

Ofyar said, essentially the study pointed out that traffic
congestion imposes a heavy burden on road users, both in terms of
time and also the cost of fuel burned.

Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that those who
contribute to the congestion, including those who park their
vehicles in side roads and shopping centers, compensate for the
losses incurred by road users, he said.

The study suggested, for example, that parking fees should be
made more progressive to discourage people from parking their
vehicles too long.

Shopping mall developers should also be compelled to build a
flyover or to pay for the expansion of roads near their
facilities to ease congestion that would develop because of their
presence.

If the suggestions are approved, then the Jakarta Municipality
could make them into regulations, Ofyar said.

The most cited reason for Jakarta's traffic problems has been
that there aren't enough roads for the number of vehicles and
that the city isn't building the roads fast enough to accommodate
the rising number of cars each year.

Trisno Soegondo, head of the institute's post graduate study
on highway systems and technology, said that this should not be a
problem.

"We've got enough roads because the roads are not jammed for
24 hours a day," he told reporters.

Congestions occur because everyone is trying to move from one
place to another at the same time, while some parts of the roads
have been converted into parking spaces.

The way out, Trisno suggested, is to rearrange the working
hours of road users so that everyone does not use the roads at
the same time.

His suggestion had already been enforced, at least partly, for
some times now. Schools, for example start at 7 a.m., while civil
servants begin work at 8 a.m., and most private companies begin
working at 9 a.m. (emb)