Jakarta grinds to a halt during World Cup semis

JAKARTA (JP): Yesterday's morning rush hour in Jakarta saw traffic flowing smoothly along the city's normally jam packed streets as people remained glued to their televisions watching the World Cup semifinals.

Many areas in the city looked a strange, yet preferable, sight, as cars moved easily along major highways and the usually congested streets.

"Spacious!," was the most popular adjective used by people asked by The Jakarta Post for their observations.

"It's not a usual morning. The road was more roomy today," said Erma N., who commutes daily from her house near Lebak Bulus, South Jakarta, to her office at the Nusantara building on Jl. Thamrin, Central Jakarta.

Local TV stations broadcast the matches live between Italy and Bulgaria at 3 a.m. and Brazil versus Sweden at 6:30 a.m. yesterday.

Jakarta traffic, which usually swells from 6:30 to 9 a.m., was dormant for much of that time.

Erma said she knew the match was taking place that morning but didn't expect it to impact traffic in such a way.

"It wasn't exactly Sunday morning traffic, but more like 10 or 11 a.m. traffic," she said of her commute.

Those commuting by bus were also pleasantly surprised by the morning's modest traffic.

Even the Tanah Abang area, regarded as one of the city's prime bottlenecks, saw one of its quietest weekday mornings ever yesterday.

"I take the bus from Ciledug, South Jakarta, and pass by Tanah Abang to get to the office at Gajah Mada, Central Jakarta. For once it was a painless exercise," said Mitsy Mardjani, an employee of a private company.

Kasdi, a Bluebird taxi driver who worked yesterday morning, said rush-hour like traffic didn't begin until about nine o'clock.

"That's when the game ended and people began to pour onto the streets to go about their daily activities," he explained.

Offices

Many government and private offices appeared to tolerate this soccer phenomenon. Though many offices declared their employees were working as usual, it was obvious that little got done before the final game whistle.

At City Hall, H. Lukman Zaini, of the municipality's public relations bureau, told the Post that many employees, mostly male, arrived at the office by 6 a.m. to watch the game on a TV in the press room.

According to Lukman, the employees watched until 8:30 a.m., the time when they had to begin work. "As soon as we knew that Brazil had won all of us got back to work," Lukman said.

"To the best of my knowledge, no one came late this morning. You can check our attendance cards," he added.

Ati, an employee of the personnel bureau at the city administration, stressed that despite watching the game they did not neglect their duties.

Some of us had to stop viewing to answer telephone calls or receive guests who came to the office, she said.

Despite looking sleepy after lunchtime, employees said they were accustomed to staying up late and going to work early the next morning.

Similarly at a number of private offices, many employees came in early to catch the game. "We tried to work normally but this doesn't mean that the TV or radio wasn't blaring," said Dany I.A. from his office at Aminta House in Lebak Bulus, South Jakarta.

Nevertheless, tardiness seemed to be a permissible virtue for the day as a government official who requested anonymity said yesterday, "Even I watched the game so I guess a little leniency should go all around."

It remains to be seen whether the World Cup final match, to be aired live at 2:30 a.m. on Monday by TVRI, will create a similar mass distraction. (arf/mds)