Jakartans need equitable transportation system

Marco Kusumawijaya, Architect, Jakarta

Think of a normal evening during the rain at peak hour on Jl. Thamrin and Jl. Sudirman in Jakarta. For every public bus with 60 cramped passengers, there are 30 private cars. The same applies all day long throughout Greater Jakarta. The roads are overwhelmed by a volume capacity ratio (the ratio between actual volume and designed capacity) of more than 1 to 2, and even 1 to 3 along Cawang -- Jl. Gatot Subroto! If highways were the only option, the Slipi -- S. Parman toll road would need an additional 36 lanes, a completely impractical solution.

That was the situation in 2002, and will continue to be if no fundamental decisions are made and action taken now, and if the highway construction paradigm continues. This is the unsurprising conclusion of a simulation conducted as part of an ongoing study being undertaken by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), titled The Study on an Integrated Transportation Master Plan (SITRAMP, www.sitramp.org).

The whole idea of urban economic productivity is centered on mobility: A relatively low cost of moving per unit goods or services to serve the relatively large size of the market. Urban economies always grow faster than rural ones.

However, people come to cities not only for money, but also for the "city lights". Here, mobility stops and accessibility starts as the ultimate goal of an urban transportation system.

Increased accessibility means more access to social and cultural life, not just economic opportunities. How often have we canceled or been late for social or cultural activities because of traffic jams?

The history of cities reveals a strong relationship between their success in the economic, social and cultural spheres -- and the availability of a mass rapid transportation system that opens up access to services, goods and interaction in society.

Unfortunately, the only concern of the city planners in Indonesia over the last 30 years has been economic productivity. Asphalted roads are constructed or widened at the expense of everything else, including sidewalks. The chances of urban spaces becoming social spaces are zero.

Jaime Lerner, the venerable ex-mayor of Curitiba, the model sustainable city in Brazil, often says that when we build the city, we mean the people.

For instance, urban life cannot survive without queuing. It is a social relationship that can be reproduced only in the city. The littering of organic waste in a rural context is fine environmentally -- though not esthetically-- as it will quickly decay and be absorbed by nature, but littering with non-organic waste in cities is something else.

Indonesians are well-known for their courteous behavior. But why is it that this does not extend to the city streets? Collective ownership of public facilities needs certain types of social responsibility to be reproduced from whatever values that we might or might not already have.

Social and cultural reproduction is a basic necessity for any city, and it is urgent for Jakarta -- and all Indonesian cities. It is a requisite for creativity; without creativity, productivity will evaporate. Around-the-clock public transportation is uniquely urban because the service requires the urban density to make it wanted and possible at all.

Public transportation stimulates people to get to know each other more, to interact, to behave properly. Frustration arises when people do not know how to queue, how to respect other users, and how to collectively maintain such facilities.

Public transportation also necessitates walking to and from its stops. Walking is not only good for an individual's health, but is also paramount for social interaction. While private cars diminish the sociability of urban spaces, walking promotes it to the maximum.

Walking also makes us experience the city in a radically different way. It completely changes the relationship between an individual and his or her surroundings. Garbage becomes real with its smell and flies, not just an eyesore viewed from one's car.

The shade of trees becomes an essential comfort along the sidewalks. Buildings, their appearances and textures, are observed at a slower pace, and pedestrians develop feelings towards them.

If architects only knew that, they might support campaigns for public transportation and pedestrian lanes, create more enjoyable buildings with richer forms and textures, and produce less abstract forms enjoyable only from the air, or uniform boxes without character.

A good public transportation system aims to provide affordable and equal access and mobility. The richer will pay more than the poorer, hence a successful transportation system is socially sustainable. Yet Jakarta's current transportation system is far from being either socially or environmentally sustainable.

The same study by JICA, which surveyed about 600,000 respondents in Greater Jakarta, revealed that cars only transport 7.7 percent of trips, while non-motorized transportation (including bicycles, pedicabs and walking), transports 41.9 percent, and buses 32.7 percent. Yet cars dominate Jakarta's roads as to transport the same number of people private cars require space that is 18 times larger than that required by buses.

Thirty private cars are needed to transport the same number of passengers as could be transported by one bus. These cars require 375 square meters of road space, while the bus would require only 25 square meters. The same citizens walking on the sidewalks would require only 50 square meters. The cars also need space for parking, gas stations and repair shops, including the highly polluting paint shops along many arterial roads in Jakarta.

The figures show extreme inequality. The mode that transports the least passengers occupies up to 83 percent of road space. Meanwhile, walking and cycling, the modes that are the most efficient and pollution-free, occupy the least space and yet are constantly squeezed and marginalized by the uninformed and outdated city planners and administration.

Road-based transport is also unsustainable as its capacity can only be increased by expanding its space, which is completely illogical for space-starved cities. By contrast, transit or rail- based systems can increase their capacity significantly by simply adding more passenger cars.

The JICA study also shows that Jakarta's poor are the least polluting citizens as they are less dependent on motorized transportation. Those who earn less than Rp 600,000 per month (60.2 percent), depend on non-motorized transportation, while 75.9 percent of those within the Rp 3 million to 4 million per month income bracket, and 47.3 percent of those with incomes of more than Rp 7.5 million per month still depend on non-car transportation.

Do the minority motorists pay more for road construction and maintenance? There has been no specific study done on this in Jakarta. But other studies in developed cities show that cyclists and pedestrians pay more for roads as road construction and maintenance is paid for out of general taxation, not by special or dedicated taxes -- while the roads that are mostly used by pedestrians and cyclists are damaged more by motorized vehicles!

Hence Jakarta urgently needs a viable, affordable and equitable transportation system where public transport prevails. It is still a long way off; but it is not too much to ask considering how it has become a standard for the world's cities. The question is not whether we want it or not, but whether we can do it or not, given the corrupt and incompetent city administration that we are cursed with.