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)