The revolution has begun on Jakarta's streets

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

When one looks at the evolution of Jakarta one cannot go past Governor Ali Sadikin who was once dubbed the city's "father of development".

For many, Ali's reign over the city was controversial as it was successful. During his 11-year tenure from 1966-1977, he legalized gambling in a limited way, designating several legal casino areas that were "protected" by officials, who were likely to have benefited financially from the scheme.

However, much of the official revenue earned from gambling taxes was then used to finance development projects in the city. After criticism from ulema and other religious leaders, gambling was later banned in the city but the developments gained from the scheme remain.

During the past few years, the incumbent governor, Sutiyoso, has focused his development projects on transportation. One could, correctly as it turns out, assume he wishes to be lauded as "the father of transportation" of Jakarta.

Sources close to the governor confirm this. "He wants to emulate Ali ... but in terms of transport," one said.

But despite all the transport talk, and the creation of the city's new busway link, many Jakartans remain unimpressed.

"I can only wonder if he (Sutiyoso) is serious or it is all just rhetoric," Candra Wijaya, a resident of Kebon Jeruk, West Jakarta, who regularly sits in jams to and from his work, said.

Candra, who says he often feels trapped in this city, is not alone. Studies show that the average traveling speed in the city is only 14.75 kilometers an hour. This snail's pace also affects the city's economy -- and the money estimated lost because of inefficiencies from traffic jams reaches Rp 41.05 billion (US$4.56 million) a day.

The jams are exacerbated by the constantly increasing numbers of vehicles in the city, which currently stand at about 4.7 million, some 1.3 million of which are private cars.

Cheap fuel, bank loans and competitive prices for cars and motorcycles have encouraged more people to start buying vehicles. The lack of comfortable or safe public transportation to many parts of the city also encourages this trend.

Sutiyoso's supporters say he has a comprehensive and integrated master-plan of the city's transportation system in hand. The plan controls the operation of private cars and motorcycles in the city, along with public transport: trains, the busway, the planned monorail and river systems but does not deal with the existing bajaj (three-wheeled taxis) and ojek (motorcycle taxis). Nevertheless, they say with this plan Sutiyoso will achieve his dream of a jam-free city.

This macro system is the basis for the development of transportation in the city until 2010. Seemingly designed to please everyone, it includes traditional road infrastructure work along with the development of a mandatory bicycle lane. The plan has been Sutiyoso's mantra during the past two years.

"These projects represent (the administration's) substantial efforts to solve traffic woes in the city. We are on the brink of a revolution in our transportation system and we must be successful. Otherwise, the city will become totally gridlocked by 2014 with at least 138 new cars coming onto city streets every day," the governor has said.

His critics say the busway, stage one of which began operations on Jan. 15, has yet to achieve its aim of encouraging private car owners to use public transport and reduce jams.

However, a survey by the New York-based Institute Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) has revealed that 14 percent of the busway's daily commuters were private car owners or passengers. The figure is much higher than in the busway's birthplace, the city of Bogota, Columbia, where only 4.7 percent of its users are private car owners.

But its 40,000 daily passengers is still lower than the 51-bus fleet system's total capacity of some 60,000 commuters a day.

The administration has insisted that the busway is only part of the solution to the city's traffic woes -- a feeder system to the proposed mass rapid transit system (MRT). Many transportation and urban planning experts believe the MRT is the best solution to the congestion in Jakarta, which accommodates about 12 million people during the day and 10 million at night.

At the moment, many say the busway is a cause of still more traffic jams. There is no doubt that for those who continue to use the non-busway lanes that congestion is now even worse in the city, particularly during peak hours.

The public have also witnessed some of the technical flaws of the system; most obviously the damaged busway lanes -- the asphalt along Jl. Sudirman and Jl. Thamrin was only of a "driveway standard" meant for private cars and not the regular flow of large buses.

The city has spent at least Rp 238 billion on the construction of the corridor and the procurement of the buses, while busway management received Rp 15 billion in public money this year for operational costs.

Next year, Sutiyoso's administration will complete the construction of the Rp 600 billion second busway corridor from the under-construction Pulo Gebang bus terminal in East Jakarta to Kalideres, West Jakarta, via the National Monument (Monas) in Central Jakarta.

The administration has extended the three-in-one traffic policy to support the busway. The policy requires a private car to have at least three passengers when passing through the restricted zones; from Jl. Sisingamangaraja, South Jakarta, to Kota in West Jakarta and from the Senayan overpass on Jl. Gatot Subroto to the Kuningan intersection. The restrictions are enforced from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. in the morning and from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the afternoon. Previously, the three-in-one restriction was shorter; from 6:30 a.m. to 10 a.m.

The government's promise to make public an evaluation of the scheme after six months of the busway, unfortunately, has not been kept. The city has yet to reveal its accountability report on the project, which was paid for by taxpayers' money.

The public will know little more until the 15-strong City Transportation Council, which was established under Bylaw No. 12/2003 on transportation, begins work. However, the council can only make recommendations to the governor and does not yet have any defined authority or tasks.

Along with the busway, there is the administration's much- vaunted monorail system. But four months since then president Megawati Soekarnoputri first broke the ground on the project, the US$650 million venture is mired in a public consultation process.

Developer PT Jakarta Monorail has promised that the construction of the monorail lines -- the "green line" that will serve a 14.8-kilometer route in the city's lucrative business districts of Kuningan, Sudirman and Senayan and the "blue line" that will serve a 12.2-kilometer route from Kampung Melayu in East Jakarta to Taman Anggrek in West Jakarta -- would start soon and the lines would be operation by 2006 and early 2007 respectively.

The monorail will be capable of ferrying up to 270,000 passengers per day with fares ranging between Rp 3,500 and Rp 7,500 for a single journey.

The administration is also going ahead with traditional road infrastructure projects and plans to build 17 new under and overpasses from 2002 to 2007. Environmentalists have said these projects would only encourage motorists to keep using their cars.

Despite all the city's plans, there are other suggestions that experts say could and should be taken into account. Vehicle age limitations, road pricing and progressive taxes for those owning more than one car are just some of the options available to the administration to keep traffic in the city down.

And by the end of 2005 the public, currently still trapped in daily gridlock, should know far better if Sutiyoso's "revolution in transport" will materialize. Time will tell.