My everyday route around Jakarta includes picking up my sister in Kebayoran Baru area. If you happen to pass this area, you would know that some minor but significant changes have happened in the past month or two. In some intersections one could no longer take a left- or right- or u-turn because the police has constructed concrete portals.
At first it happened only in one intersection that the police might have found to cause traffic jam in the area. Later people (including myself) find another shortcut route that soon was closed off as well. But still we notorious shortcutters find another route that I’m hoping would not be closed off by the police.
For me it’s not simply a matter of finding the shortest possible route that I can pass through without breaking any traffic regulation. Rather, I find that Indonesian traffic regulation attempts to find shortcuts to problems that could not be solved simply by closing off streets and asking people to take a detour instead.
If the last shortcut I take now is closed off, it means that I would have to take more than 3 kilometer detour to travel the same distance. That detour would have added a total of 6 kilometer to my original round-trip route, additional cost for gas at around Rp.2.700,-, and additional 15-20 minutes every day. This is equal to 30 kilometer, Rp. 13.500,-, and 75-100 minutes every week. 120 kilometer, Rp.54.000,-, and 300-400 minutes every month.
This personal cost captures the big loss of Jakarta’s population in general. The Study on Integrated Transportation Master Plan (SITRAMP) funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) estimated Jakarta’s traffic congestion caused the region to suffer annual economic loss in the amount of Rp.3,000 billion (US$ 315.7 million) for vehicle operating costs and Rp.2,500 billion (US$ 263.1 million) for travel time.
All too often temporary solutions are offered to solve problems that in turn create long-term repercussions. Instead of regulating shortcuts, perhaps the police should be thinking about how to create regulations to solve problems in the long-term.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Speed Bumps
My brother told me the other day that he goes through 62 speed bumps during his 23 kilometer route from home to our sister’s office in Kebayoran Baru, to his office in Sudirman, and back home again. That’s incredible! True he goes by small streets, but still! It means on average, for every 370 meters of travel, he would have to pass one speed bump!
I started wondering why this is the case. In my ten years of living in the U.S., speed bumbs can rarely be found along the streets. So how does the police ensure that people don’t speed up in (heavily-populated) residential areas? The answer is because they have traffic regulations in the form of stop signs and speed limits that people actually follow. In Jakarta, such signs can rarely be found. If you ask me why, I would not know the answer.
But signs are definitely much cheaper than speed bumps! If we are skeptical about whether it would work, think about the time when we hear that the police decided to enforce car passengers to use seat belts. We thought that it wouldn’t work. But apparently it works better than expected. Perhaps it’s worth a try with traffic signs – before the bottom of our cars got too many bumps!
I started wondering why this is the case. In my ten years of living in the U.S., speed bumbs can rarely be found along the streets. So how does the police ensure that people don’t speed up in (heavily-populated) residential areas? The answer is because they have traffic regulations in the form of stop signs and speed limits that people actually follow. In Jakarta, such signs can rarely be found. If you ask me why, I would not know the answer.
But signs are definitely much cheaper than speed bumps! If we are skeptical about whether it would work, think about the time when we hear that the police decided to enforce car passengers to use seat belts. We thought that it wouldn’t work. But apparently it works better than expected. Perhaps it’s worth a try with traffic signs – before the bottom of our cars got too many bumps!
Map & Sense of (In)security
Last Sunday, I was invited to be a guest on a radio talkshow at Radio Utan Kayu with Dahlia Citra, host and producer of "Cuma Perempuan". The talkshow highlighted the issue of public participation in urban planning in Jakarta, particularly on Jakarta's transportation. One of the listeners commented that she was afraid to take the public transportation because of the lack of security.
I too am afraid of taking Jakarta’s public transportation. The only time I tried to take it on my own was to go to a friend’s house which isn’t too far from my own. That one experience leaves a particular memory in my mind. Although I know the direction and the area (I normally drive), I had no idea which public transportation I should take, and I was feeling insecure. I didn’t want to ask a stranger on the street. So I asked the driver of the public transportation instead, which was no help, because he was more eager to have me on his angkot than letting me know which one I should have taken. At the end, I had to transfer three times to travel a distance of less than 8 kilometers in total.
This feeling of insecurity could have been reduced if I at least have a map on my hand, telling me which public transportation I should take. As part of a research I did for IASTE conference, my research assistant Bevani found out that the reason why such a map does not exist in Jakarta is because Jakarta’s Transportation Department (Dephub) does not even have such a map. Bevani found that public transportation routes in Jakarta was not established by the government, but rather, by private companies that proposed these routes to the government. Later when we mapped public transportation routes around South West Jakarta, predictably, most started or ended in commercial and/or residential areas and routes that are populated, creating routes that resemble a rhizome rather than one that create a coherent whole.
I too am afraid of taking Jakarta’s public transportation. The only time I tried to take it on my own was to go to a friend’s house which isn’t too far from my own. That one experience leaves a particular memory in my mind. Although I know the direction and the area (I normally drive), I had no idea which public transportation I should take, and I was feeling insecure. I didn’t want to ask a stranger on the street. So I asked the driver of the public transportation instead, which was no help, because he was more eager to have me on his angkot than letting me know which one I should have taken. At the end, I had to transfer three times to travel a distance of less than 8 kilometers in total.
This feeling of insecurity could have been reduced if I at least have a map on my hand, telling me which public transportation I should take. As part of a research I did for IASTE conference, my research assistant Bevani found out that the reason why such a map does not exist in Jakarta is because Jakarta’s Transportation Department (Dephub) does not even have such a map. Bevani found that public transportation routes in Jakarta was not established by the government, but rather, by private companies that proposed these routes to the government. Later when we mapped public transportation routes around South West Jakarta, predictably, most started or ended in commercial and/or residential areas and routes that are populated, creating routes that resemble a rhizome rather than one that create a coherent whole.
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