Monas park tidier but visitors not happy

Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Newly "improved" National Monument (Monas) park was quiet on Tuesday, a day after Governor Sutiyoso inaugurated the Rp 8.7 billion (US$965,000) fence surrounding its vicinity.

Before its inauguration, the park was closed for a week to allow workers to add their final touches to the project.

"Well, I must admit that the park looks tidier and orderly since they erected the fence and asked street vendors to leave," a visitor, Haryo, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

"But the fence restricts access compared with before, when you could get into Monas park from almost any point on its perimeter," he added.

The area is also free of motorized vehicles now. The parking lot is located at the southern margin of the park, along Jl. Medan Merdeka Selatan.

Visitors have to walk some 200 meters to 300 meters to reach the monument, without shelter.

The park also lacks park benches where people can rest after a stroll or just enjoy the calm surroundings in the midst of the bustling city.

Nor have any rain shelters been provided.

Haryo, visiting the park with his four-year-old son, also complained the park still lacked resting areas and other public amenities.

"The city administration should provide stalls selling refreshment so visitors do not have to walk so far just to get a drink," he said.

"At present we have to walk quite far to the parking lot where the street vendors are."

He acknowledged that street vendors had the potential to produce an untidy and dirty appearance.

"But that depends on how the city administration manages them; they should be able to do it easily.

"However, we all know too well that the city administration has failed in this respect for a long time," said Haryo.

The city administration has relocated the vendors as they were accused of being a blot on the landscape.

Now the fenced-in park accommodates 647 street vendors, while formerly some 2,000 operated in the park. The fate of vendors not given a space in the park remains unclear.

Although the park is claimed to be off-limits to motorized vehicles, several city-owned trucks and pickups were seen driving around.

The vehicles belonged to the City Public Order Agency and City Parks Agency. A military jeep was also seen parked inside the park.

Meanwhile, urban designer Marco Kusumawijaya told the Post that the city administration had not only omitted to provide public amenities in the park but had failed totally in providing an integrated plan on how to develop it.

"What the city administration has done is to rely on piecemeal planning based on an outburst of ideas instead of a comprehensive master plan," he said.

"Presidential Decree No. 25/1996 on the development of the Medan Merdeka area already provides guidelines on how to develop Monas park."

Marco said the city administration did not adhere to the decree in its plan to develop Monas park. It did not cancel the decree before starting its own design, either.

"It would have been better if the city administration had organized a competition to design a better park, which could have involved large-scale public participation.

"Such a competition would have signaled to everyone the importance and uniqueness of Monas park."