Haywire traffic accompanies school opening
Urip Hudiono, Jakarta
An international school that opened its doors on Wednesday in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, is turning the usually slow traffic in the suburb to one resembling hectic downtown.
As the clock nears the 7:15 a.m. school bell, traffic backs up along the streets bordering Gandhi Memorial International School, which recently relocated from Sunter, North Jakarta, owing to a property dispute.
The long queues of cars shuttling students to school turns into a bottleneck: It appears each student wants to be dropped off at the main entrance, although a dozen security guards deployed by the school to help coordinate traffic had told drivers to go through the parking lot first.
The parking lot, which is located behind the school, quickly fills in a few minutes and causes a separate jam, as its entrance fronts a nearby intersection.
A motorist, who declined to be named, said it took her about 1.5 hours on Wednesday to take her two children to their school on the other side of Gandhi Memorial.
"There had been no problems for the last two-and-a-half years... Now, getting to school is rather traumatic," she said.
However, the students and their parents cannot be blamed for the traffic jams, because they have no alternative means of transportation -- Gandhi Memorial does not provide school buses.
Jakartans have to endure similar logjams in the morning and early afternoon around popular state or private schools, such as St. Theresia Catholic School in Menteng, Central Jakarta, and state high school SMA 70 in Bulungan, South Jakarta.
Most schools in Jakarta are located on busy streets that are open to public transportation vehicles, which only worsen traffic.
No regulation exists to obligate schools to provide large enough parking lots to accommodate private cars used to shuttle students to and from school. Without ample space, many parents and drivers of students end up parking along the road in front of the school.
Juli, an administrator at Gandhi Memorial, said the school bus service was not yet ready, and they were still registering students for the service and planning out bus routes.
"Hopefully, the buses will be running next week," she said. "The ones we have now are only for teachers and staff."
Although the school can probably get away with stopping up traffic -- if it is temporary -- considering the mostly light traffic in the area, several passing motorists have already become irritated by the daily morning jams.
Hariyadi, who happened to pass by the school on his way to Mangga Dua from Sunter, regretted it and said he would definitely find another route.
Meanwhile, Ramly, who lives in a low-cost apartment in the area, wondered how worse congestion could become, as plans are underway to develop Kemayoran into a business district.
"Just one school is enough to cause such heavy congestion," he said.