Solution to pollution

Solution to pollution

It does not take a pharmacist or health expert to work out
that there are serious problems with the air in Jakarta. Just ask
any of the commuters who have to wait for a bus down at the
Cawang interchange.

Congratulations to Governor Suryadi Soedirdja on his office's
decision to phase out the dreaded smoke spewing bajaj and Made
Djaja's environmental team on his consideration for using
unleaded gasoline or gas in vehicles (The Jakarta Post, March 30,
1996).

I have an additional idea for solving "congestion" that I wish
to share with the "Blue Skies" committee.

Buses also tend to spew forth great black clouds and
occasionally catch fire, but are an absolute necessity for many
commuters. If these derelicts of transportation were to be up-
graded or replaced with a modern, cleaner fleet of well
maintained buses, I'm sure we'd see better results in air
conditions. Such a project would no doubt be a very costly
exercise. However, perhaps the finical burden should be born by
all commuters. The buses could be provided with special transit
lanes to encourage more motorists to use them. Furthermore,
motorists choosing a private mode of transportation could pay a
small fee for forfeiting the use of buses.

It seems to me that in the face of such enormous, obvious
problems in this society, a lot of the individuals directly
responsible just sigh and hope that the problem will go away
eventually. It really doesn't take that much to fix a broken
muffler.

Good on you to the people making efforts to educate and
discipline those individuals and good luck to the teams who are
taking steps to tackle the problem.

ANDI BENSON

Jakarta