Jakartans need equitable transportation system

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.