'Toll road will not ease traffic jams'

Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The construction of toll roads in the city will not solve traffic problems as it will encourage more people to buy cars instead of using public transport, a transportation expert has said.

"The recommencement of toll road construction will only provide a better road network for owners of private cars. This, in turn, will dissuade them from using public transportation," Djamester Simarmata of the University of Indonesia (UI) told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

"Residents can now more easily buy new cars under a variety of financing schemes provided by car dealers. The construction of more toll roads will encourage them to buy new vehicles. More cars on the streets will inevitably mean more traffic congestion," he added.

President Megawati Soekarnoputri resurrected last Friday 21 toll road projects across the country, worth some Rp 31.6 trillion (US$3.4 billion), with a total length of 576 kilometers (km).

Included were some 52 km of the Jakarta Outer Ring Road which, it is believed, will ease traffic congestion in the city.

All the projects were suspended by the government in 1997 as part of retrenchment measures to cope with the economic crisis.

Simarmata, an urban economics and transportation systems expert at UI's School of Economics, said the toll road construction did not meet the needs of the majority of residents.

"What residents badly need is better public transportation," he said.

"I really don't understand why the government prefers to construct toll roads instead of improving the state of public transport," he added.

Jakarta has four million cars and motorbikes on its 6,500 km of road. On the other hand, there are 5,411 large buses, 4,981 medium-sized buses and 11,848 public minivans.

Many motorists say that they are reluctant to use public transportation due to the poor service provided. They also complain that not only are the vehicles extremely uncomfortable; they also lack adequate security.

Meanwhile Ofyar Z. Tamin of the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) said that toll road construction would only provide a short-term solution to the problems of traffic congestion.

"The toll roads will probably ease traffic congestion in the short term, but they will create an even bigger problem in the long run," he said.

"What Jakarta really needs is an integrated public transportation scheme involving all modes of transportation.

"Even the presence of a mass rapid transit (MRT) system will not provide a total solution without an integrated scheme," he said.

Ofyar described MRT as a system capable of transporting 40,000 passengers per hour in a given direction.

"The city administration must improve both its road network coverage while at the same time increase the capacity of the existing urban railways," he said.

He also urged the city administration to improve the state of the existing road network so that if could perform better.

Jakarta's road network takes up 10 percent of the total urban area, which is the minimum requirement for a city, but the majority of it does not function properly.

"Many of the streets are occupied by street vendors, as well as used for parking. Such activities greatly reduce road capacity.

"It would help a lot if the city administration could free the streets from such activities. Expanding the road network is very expensive," he said.

As a rule of thumb, a city needs some 10 percent to 30 percent of its total area for the road network, he said.

"The construction of toll roads will increase the road network from the current 10 percent of the total city area. That is the positive impact of construction," he said.