Tourists turned off by Bandung traffic snarls

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung

The popularity of the new Cipularang toll, which is supposed to shorten travel times between Jakarta and Bandung, is causing chaotic weekend gridlock in West Java's shopping destination.

The new road, which cuts the four-hour trip to the city to 90 minutes, meant Raina, 29, decided not to take food when she set out from her house in Tanah Tinggi, Central Jakarta, with her 18- month-old daughter.

But while their journey to the outskirts of Bandung was a speedy one, problems emerged when they were about to exit the toll road at Pasteur. Stuck in a two-kilometer-long line with a hungry and crying toddler and an impatient friend calling her from a restaurant in Dago, Raina lost her patience.

"I was furious. It turned out that the jam at the toll road exit was due to the bottleneck at the Pasteur-Soerya Sumantri intersection," she said.

Raina decided to take an alternative route, turning left at Soerya Sumantri to pass through a maze of side-streets heading toward Setrasari Mall and on to Dago. Again, she was caught in the crawl because many other motorists had thought of the same thing.

"It took me two hours just to drive from Pasteur to Dago, nearly the same time it took me to reach Bandung via Cipularang. It's ridiculous," she said.

In the crowded sections of Jl. Dago and Jl. Riau, where most of the clothing factory outlets and restaurants are found, parking attendants have turned the road shoulders into ad hoc car lots, worsening the congestion.

The city's traffic police chief, Adj. Sr. Comr. Erry Nursatari, estimated private vehicles entering Bandung now reached between 80,000 and 130,000 cars a day during weekends, adding to the city's total of around 600,000 registered vehicles.

"Nearly all of them are heading toward the northern part of Bandung," he said.

The jams are created by an obsolete road network, a lack of off-road parking and the influx of weekend tourists from Jakarta, problems that observers say need to be fixed by an integrated transportation plan from local government.

Tired of the delays in their city, Bandung residents are now exiting the central shopping district in droves.

Prasetyawati of Kopo, Bandung, said she now kept away from downtown and northern Bandung on weekends to avoid the traffic snarls there.

"It's pathetic to see the worsening traffic in Bandung due to the many (Jakarta) cars with 'B' license plate numbers; people seeking good food and cheap clothing," she said.

However, the head of the city administration prefers to see the choking jams as a blessing rather than a curse.

Bandung Mayor Dada Rosada acknowledged that the city was now facing an acute traffic problem, which he said had grown since the establishment of factory outlets and food centers in 1995.

After admitting that his office had as yet found no plan to solve the traffic woes, Dada said he would rather see more cars in the city than less. Tourism was vital to local body revenues and played a central part in the town's economy, he said.

But Dada's optimism is not shared by the some of the city's commercial operators.

West Java Hotel and Restaurant Association chairman Hendrawan said his members were worried that unless a remedy for the traffic problems was found, tourists would end up rejecting the city for less-crowded destinations.

"The administration has to find an alternative solution," he said.