Owners prepare to part with old cars
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
As a low level employee of a private company in Central Jakarta, Jaka, 35, was able to buy a 87 Toyota Kijang after 10 years of saving.
"I bought the car two years ago for Rp 30 million after saving part of my salary for 10 years. Besides driving it every day to the office, I always bring my children and wife to the mall or an attraction on holidays," he told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.
Jaka, who lives with his family in Jagakarsa, South Jakarta, said the car was one of the few things that allowed his family to have some fun.
Nowadays, though, the sight of the car only makes him worry as the government plan to ban old cars from Jakarta's streets would force him to sell his car to people from another area at a lower price.
"I am afraid that I can't buy a new car as potential buyers would press for the lowest possible price. Who wants a car that can't be driven in Jakarta? How can I take my family out now? We can't afford to pay for taxis, while it is an inconvenience -- dangerous even -- to take public transportation," Jaka said.
Similar fears were voiced by Ridwan, 41, a small-scale vendor, who lives in Ciputat, South Jakarta and regularly delivers his products to Tanah Abang market, Central Jakarta.
He said he depended on his 1988 Suzuki cargo to transport his merchandise from his house to the market.
"How can I get my merchandise to the market? Buying a new car would use up all my capital," Ridwan told the Post.
Jakarta has over six million vehicles, but experts on urban transportation say the city's streets can only accommodate four million vehicles without pollution and traffic congestion becoming unbearable.
The Jakarta Police are planning on forcing old vehicles off the capital's streets by handing over the registration process to regions outside Jakarta. It is unclear whether the move is intended to reduce the number of vehicles, to support the energy conservation campaign or to minimize air pollution in the capital.
The central government also announced that it was considering banning vehicles over a certain age to limit the number of private cars on the roads.
Carrel Tilualu, a lawyer at the Indonesia Public Lawyers Association (P3I), said that banning cars based on age was only a piecemeal solution to transportation problems in the capital.
He said such a shortcut policy was discriminative and heightened the feeling of social injustice felt by low-income people in the capital.
"The proposed policy is not smart. How can they force people to sell their cars when they (the government) has not set up a good transportation system? If public transportation was reliable then the people would automatically use it, even in the absence of such a regulation," Carrel told the Post.
He said that, if implemented, the policy would rob many people in the lower-income bracket of the right to make a living and indicate that the government had sided with rich people and the car industry.