JP/3/ROAD
Road buildings not best solution to traffic woe
JAKARTA (JP): The traffic problem in Jakarta faces a long and winding road, and now a leading non-governmental organization is criticizing the government's policies on the problem as counterproductive.
An official of the Ministry of Public Works stressed yesterday that in a bid to solve the traffic problem, the government has aggressively added to the roads, with 50 interchanges now under construction.
Dargono Danuprawiro said that this construction does not come cheap. Rp 2 trillion (approximately US$1 billion) will be spent on new roads through 2005.
PIJAR, an NGO known for its social activism, believes that this massive investment could actually make a bad situation worse.
Endi Martono, head of PIJAR's legal bureau, yesterday blamed traffic jams on the growing number of private cars and called for improvements in mass transit to fight the problem.
"The road development policy will encourage people to drive their own cars, whereas the people have no comfortable public vehicles as an alternative," Endi stated, referring to the erratic public transportation system.
Another interchange at Penjaringan will be finished in time for the Air Show 1996, scheduled to be held at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Cengkareng, West Java.
The show is a project of the Minister of Research and Technology B.J. Habibie, who is also the head of the state-owned aircraft industry (IPTN) in Bandung, West Java.
According to Endi, whose organization demanded that the current Minister of Transportation resign following the tragic train crash in West Java last November, the government should spend the money on expanding and improving the rail system.
"Developing more roads will not help while there are not enough public vehicles. It merely prompts the banks to give credit to people to purchase autos," he said.
Endi stressed his belief that any increase in the number of roads will be far outstripped by the sales of new cars in the city.
He suggested the government discourage people from using private cars and simultaneously increase the number of public vehicles.
Dargono was quoted by Antara as saying that traffic management will be useless if the people themselves are not disciplined on the road.
The official added that the government will implement one-way traffic on as many streets as possible to reduce traffic.
"He is on the right track to trail Bangkok," Endi commented, referring to Bangkok's one-way traffic policy, which has been proved to worsen the traffic condition. (09)