Fauzi's traffic policy

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Wed, 10/10/2007 3:57 PM  |  Opinion

For many Jakartans, Idul Fitri has always brought peace, literally. This year is no exception.

Residents will enjoy a respite for the next week, thanks to the departure of millions of residents and commuters who make a living in the capital for their hometowns to celebrate the holiday.

The most visible blessing of Idul Fitri will be the unusually smooth traffic, which runs counter to the worsening congestion recently seen in many parts of the capital. At least between Friday and Saturday next week, when government and private employees take leave en masse, long queues of cars will disappear from both the city's expressways and arterial roads, and raucous horn honking will cease.

During the week-long holiday, those who remain in Jakarta will breathe less polluted air, unlike in many towns across Java and Sumatra where holiday revelers reunite with their families.

Unfortunately, the rare comfort will end as soon as the holiday-goers make their way back from their Idul Fitri leave. It will be business as usual then, with traffic congestion tormenting not only car drivers but also motorcycle riders.

The return of ""normalcy"" will also mark an end of the honeymoon between new Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo and residents, unless he comes up with a breakthrough to address the long-standing problem, which is very unlikely.

In his first day in office on Monday, Fauzi already threw in the towel. He said there would be no short-term solution to the daily traffic congestion facing the city. Jakarta's 10 million people will have to wait until the end of 2008 to see the traffic management blueprint Fauzi inherited from his predecessor, Sutiyoso, hopefully begin to work.

Fauzi envisions that by that time the infrastructure of the mass rapid transit system, better known as the busway, will be well in place, so his administration can adopt the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system to force people to move to public transportation.

The ERP has been proven to reduce road traffic by 25,000 cars during peak hours in Singapore, with average road speeds increasing by about 20 percent. The neighboring city-state has implemented the traffic restriction scheme since 1998 and it is widely recognized as one of the most successful systems in the world.

Some European cities, including London, have followed Singapore's lead, although in other cities similar systems have failed to work for various reasons. In Hong Kong the ERP implementation stalled due to public protests.

Compared to Singapore, Jakarta is facing far more daunting traffic challenges. Borrowing the Malthus theory, the growth of roads in Jakarta follows the numerical order, while the vehicle population is growing geometrically.

A series of surveys that preceded the busway system found that Jakarta was home to five million cars and motorcycles, plus around 600,000 vehicles coming in from the neighboring cities of Bogor, Bekasi and Tangerang. One thousand new vehicles are sold every day, while the road network is growing by 1 percent annually.

The surveys concluded that by 2014 Jakarta's roads will be at a total standstill. As former governor Sutiyoso put it, ""Vehicles will hardly be able to move after leaving the garage.""

Fauzi has been handed a daunting job. But he cannot seek excuses by blaming the existing transportation blueprint drawn up by the previous administration, which he was a part of.

The new governor has no other option but continue the old policy while making as many improvements to Sutiyoso's legacy as possible.

Fauzi is quite realistic in offering no immediate solution to the traffic headaches. His promise to accelerate construction of busway corridors will have to materialize during the Idul Fitri break. If necessary the new governor should cut short his holiday to make sure the ongoing busway construction, which has been blamed for the even more chaotic traffic over the past few weeks, is finished by the time people begin returning to Jakarta from their holidays. His credibility is at stake otherwise.

In the long run, Fauzi will not have to devote too much time and energy to finding the most suitable traffic restriction system if he manages to provide a convenient and mass rapid transportation system. Any traffic restriction policy will fail to ease Jakarta's congestion, as evident in the so-called three-in-one scheme.

Motorists will voluntarily refrain from using their private vehicles only if public transportation is available for all.

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