MRT won't prevent traffic jams: Expert

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The city administration's plan to build a US$ 1.5 billion subway will not ease traffic congestion unless the public transportation service is improved and undisciplined street vendors and motorists removed from the roads, according to a transportation expert.

"Will the MRT project (alone) solve the problem? That's nonsense," Ofyar Z. Tamin, from the School of Civil Engineering at the Bandung Institute of Technology, told The Jakarta Post.

He said that traffic jams occur in Jakarta and some other big cities in the country because the road capacity is not fully optimized. Not only do street vendors run their businesses in the street, there are also many motorists who park their vehicles on the street.

"In some streets, especially near the shopping areas, only between 40 percent and 60 percent of the road can be used by motorists," he said.

He suggested that traffic would be eased if private car owners took public buses, but that this could only be achieved if the public transportation were made more comfortable.

Ofyar underlined the need to improve the public transportation service, because land transportation and an MRT should be integrated.

Governor Sutiyoso said on Tuesday that daily traffic jams occurring in many parts of the city were usually caused by too many private vehicles in the streets.

"The answer to the city's traffic jams is high volume rapid transport: the subway project," he remarked.

He said the subway project was being discussed at a ministerial level, hoping that by the end of the year it could be approved.

"I hope that the project can be started next year," Sutiyoso said.

The project was first planned in 1995 but then postponed due to the economic crisis.

Ofyar said that traffic jams could also be relieved by the extension of existing roads or the construction of new roads, underpasses or flyovers.

"But they are very costly and need sophisticated technology," he said.

The car polling system applied in the city's main roads is good, he said, but it doesn't really work because many motorists take "jockeys" from the street as passengers in order to use the restricted roads.

He hailed the electric train operating in Greater Jakarta but reminded that the public land transportation service should be improved because train passengers needed it to deliver them to their final destinations.