Revealing the roots of Jakarta's traffic woes

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

If you are think that traffic congestion is a new phenomenon in Jakarta, think again, for a photo exhibition on the city's transportation history offers striking evidence that such woes plagued the capital in the early 1970s.

If motorists these days think that the roads are unfriendly to them, they should know that back in 1983, poor Jakartans had to do battle on severely congested roads in the heart of the capital, as shown in one of the exhibition photos.

Visitors will have a chance to get a glimpse into how traffic congestion was a perennial problem in the "Big Durian", which celebrates its 478th birthday this week.

The problems persist, despite a multitude of projects initiated by successive city governors to deal with it.

The exhibition, however, confirms a widely held assumption that traffic congestion has got worse with each passing year as more and more motorized vehicles occupy the road, driving away more environmentally friendly modes of transportation.

Whether it be 1971 or 2001, the song remains the same.

In a photo taken by Kompas daily photographer Kartono Riyadi dated Aug. 19, 1972, for instance, a becak (pedicab) can be seen on the street in a sea of stationary cars stuck in a traffic jam.

Another photo by Riyadi dated 1974 shows a delman (traditional horse-drawn buggy) moving ahead of a passenger bus on one of the city's main thoroughfares.

Such a view is indeed rare, if not impossible now, as becak have been banned in the city since the late 1980s, and delman operate these days purely as tourist attractions.

Scores of photos on display also provide evidence that becak were common in the city from the early 1940s.

A photo taken by M. Ali, dated 1941, shows one on a quiet road, a view that can be seen only in smaller towns in Java now.

In the early 1940s, Jakarta was populated by only 800,000 people, which pales in comparison with the present-day 12 million. There were only 176,000 motorized vehicles at that time, compared to 6.3 million in 2004.

Apart from chronicling the city's struggle with traffic congestion, the exhibition also reveals aspects of Jakarta's interesting past.

A photo taken by another Kompas photographer, Hasanuddin shows that in the early 1980s, that Lapangan Banteng square in Central Jakarta was once a bustling bus station.

Although such a revelation may not be so interesting to those who have lived in the city since early childhood, the younger generation will find it truly fascinating.

An aerial view of Semanggi cloverleaf taken on Jan. 20, 1974, by Riyadi shows that apart from a few tall buildings, the area around one of the city's landmarks was nothing but a vast open area covered with lush greenery.

After being shown the depressing state of the city's transportation as well as some "eye candy", visitors approaching the exit are treated to the city's pipedream of a reliable, mass rapid transportation system.

Curators of the exhibition have put on display many photos showing Governor Sutiyoso's pet project to deal with transportation problems -- from the kancil, aimed at replacing the three-wheeled bajaj, to the TransJakarta busway and the monorail.

Once visitors have left the exhibition and driven a few meters away, they may experience for themselves the harsh reality of thousands of cars moving at a snail's pace in downtown Jakarta.

Photo exhibition Jakarta dari Masa ke Masa: Gubernur & Transportasi (Jakarta Down the Years: Governors and Transportation) is at the Jakarta Museum of History, Jl. Taman Fatahillah No. 1, West Jakarta. Exhibition runs through July 21.