Facing the reality

The Jakarta city administration seems to need some new ideas in dealing with its efforts to put an end to the city's notorious traffic debacle. After so many statements by city officials on the importance of the continuation of the three-in-one traffic policy, newly installed Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso said after meeting with President Soeharto on Monday that he planned to abolish the system because it had been proven ineffective.

The policy bars any private car with less than three passengers, including the driver, from entering certain areas of the city during morning rush hours.

The general, who was commander of the Jakarta Military Command until recently, seems to have been watching the management of the traffic problem here and the confusion the three-in-one system produced daily. It seems that he has not been impressed by statements from city officials who have defended the policy since its introduction in 1992 by claiming that it was the best available way to overcome the traffic congestion in Jakarta's main thoroughfares.

Since the reality in the field blatantly contradicts official statements, people tend to believe that the administration, which saw no other alternative, wanted to enjoy the unpopular debacle. The show has evolved into a face-saving farce.

We watch the chaos and confusion on our city's streets with frustration because during the first months the system actually seemed to show promise. However, it quickly became a source of mockery for teenage school children who laughed at the logic behind the decision.

Some primary and secondary school students, for their part, have looked to make a small profit helping the rich manipulate the policy by offering their services to play the part of second and third passengers. Poor young people, far from being well- dressed and whose families cannot afford to send them to school, seem to believe that they too deserve to take advantage of the system.

Attempts to stop this twisting of the law have been totally nonproductive, as mercenary riders easily duck away from police who try to uphold the original intent of the policy.

Phenomenal traffic jams occur as children wait along the side of busy streets for drivers to use their services while they play a hide-and-seek game with law enforcers. It is difficult to understand that city officials have not interpreted these derisive actions as being nothing but scorn for their policy.

Jakarta's traffic woes are perhaps the worst in the world, and tomorrow does not hold any promise for better conditions because the number of cars here increases daily.

If hearing is believing, Jakartans now own 2.1 million cars -- meaning that if all of these vehicles were driven at the same time, the Jakarta-Surabaya 800-kilometer-long road would not be long enough to carry them. The capital city has only 6,000 kilometers of road, and its total area is no larger than 661 square kilometers.

The problem in Jakarta might be overcome if it had the road infrastructure of Los Angeles plus the subway system of London combined. This, of course, would be too expensive for Jakarta.

Equally implausible is the idea to introduce monthly stickers for entering certain congested areas during rush hours. Such a system would be highly unworkable because there would be so many loopholes. Stickers can easily be counterfeited. Monitoring the roads for systematic enforcement would be impossible, while the fines erratically imposed on traffic violators would only enrich traffic officers.

So as we swallow the fact that we live in such an overcrowded city of over nine million people, we can be consoled by statements from newcomers from developing countries that Jakarta must be heaven for the rich because there are no old cars to be seen.