Monorail would be 'more efficient than subway' for Jakarta

On the sidelines of the Asian Network of Major Cities (ANMC) meeting in Jakarta on Tuesday, the popular but controversial Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara shared his experience in developing Tokyo, an experience the Jakarta administration could also learn from, in a conversation with The Jakarta Post's Kornelius Purba. The following is the excerpt of the conversation:

Question: Tokyo has a rather comprehensive public transportation system to reduce its traffic problems. How can Jakarta learn from it?

Answer: I don't know about the degree of traffic congestion in Jakarta, but traffic congestion is something that is a great concern in Tokyo. I think traffic congestion is Tokyo's weakest point. There are 23 roads in the center of Tokyo, that is the area where the population is the greatest. During the day the speed of vehicles sometimes is slower than the speed of bicycles.

In this area of 23 roads we have a mass of railways and subway networks and the degree of density of railways is one of the highest in the world. In terms of the number of railway and subway stations per square kilometer, Tokyo has the highest number of stations in the world.

But (he emphasized), and there is a big but. a lot of people do not use the railways and subways. Of course commuters take the train, however, other than commuting to work a lot of people do not use the networks, and that makes profitability for railway companies and subway companies very difficult.

The reason why we have this predicament is that several years ago a communist governor ruled Tokyo for 12 years, and during that time, he put a stop to all kinds of public works including highway construction and especially the loops or circular express way surrounding Tokyo.

And this continued until I became governor. So when I became governor I lifted the ban on public works, especially the road construction, the circular or loop road surrounding Japan. If you look into the condition of cities like Paris and London, the degree of construction of circular highways is near 100 percent. But in the case of Tokyo it is only just over 30 percent. So once this loop or circular highway construction is completed in Tokyo traffic congestion can be eliminated.

Jakarta is now planning to build more railways, a monorail and subway. But there is strong criticism that the construction of such networks is too expensive. Is this true?

In the case of the monorail, if you compare the degree of convenience to the users, the monorail is something that can be constructed in a very short period of time, and the cost is not so high. I believe that three or four years ago the Asian Games were held in Hiroshima prefecture and there was a monorail line built from downtown in the cities that hosted the Asian Games to the venues of other sports events, which were quite some distance away. But the monorail provided a very good service. It only needed 1.5 years to complete the project.

How about the subway?

It is very costly. Taking the example of Taiwan, I think geological conditions in Taiwan are quite similar to Jakarta. There are a lot of low land, marshland and the soil is not so solid and compact. So in the case of Taipei, I think it took a lot of time and money to complete the subway construction. So in this area, the monorail is more economical.

Although Jakarta is far behind Tokyo, as a governor what friendly advice could you give to the Jakarta administration?

Don't copy what Tokyo did. This is the first time I have come to Jakarta, but as I drove around the city, what I saw, I don't know whether you call it a slum, but it is a cluster of small houses of poor people and the houses are only one story, no high rise houses and so forth.

The city government should have a city plan, either the city government or national government, with public planning to include more high-rise residential buildings. And the vacated space could be utilized for road construction or parks. I think that is how the government or authorities should utilize the available land.

But actually we do have some problems in Tokyo. We are very much troubled by the same problems. There are people who have a right to the land, and those people are excessively protective regarding their land rights and they never respond to the authorities' plan to revitalize the urban sector of Tokyo. And as a result we have some districts which are quite unsafe from the point of view of security. Of course they are not dirty or very poor looking, but they are still unsafe.

One step ahead of Japan, Indonesia has elected its leader in direct presidential elections. However, unlike Japan Indonesians will only have the chance to directly elect their regional leaders this year. As a directly elected governor what are your suggestions for such an election?

I am popular because I am not liked by left-wingers. I think I speak frankly in a straightforward manner and also I always survey what is really needed by the citizens of Tokyo and I come up with policy measures that respond to the needs of the citizens of Tokyo. That's what I do. I like to describe Tokyo as the capital where everything is concentrated, everything is integrated.

I have served as a member of parliament for years, and minister of several administrations. But I always told myself that it is very important to see the actual field, to go there, to use your eyes, to walk there yourself. I always regarded this as important. When you are in the Diet or central government you don't have much opportunity to see the situation in the field by yourself. You rely on the reports coming from the field to make your decisions. And also the bureaucrats who write the report would not go to the actual field to see what is happening out there. As a result, the national government or anything at the center of Japan is very much delayed.

When I was the minister of environment there was a very serious intractable disease, the Minamata disease which is caused by mercury poisoning. I wanted to see how things work, so I tried to go there. And all the bureaucrats told me not to go. But nevertheless I went there. I was the first minister of the environment ever to see the situation in Minamata. Anyway, I thought being governor it would be easier for me to do it by myself.