Monorail would be 'more efficient than subway' for Jakarta

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.