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Editorial: Siding with sidewalks
Sat, 08/23/2008 10:02 AM | Opinion
We pedestrians are among the most poorly protected people in Jakarta. We are often forced to take risks -- some potentially fatal -- merely in walking down the street.
We have to walk on road shoulders because the few pedestrian walkways are poorly designed and maintained. Some have even been taken over by kiosks, used for parking or worse -- not to mention dangerous -- used by speeding motorcycles.
The absence of crosswalks and bridges, particularly along main thoroughfares, mean that some of us have to run the unnecessary risks of crossing roads with fast-moving traffic.
Not surprisingly, many of the city's traffic accidents involve pedestrians.
Data at the Jakarta Police shows that road accidents killed at least 16 people and wounded more than 130 people last week. One of those fatalities was a pedestrian who was hit by a bus while trying to cross a busway lane. Traffic accidents are the country's third largest killer after two contagious diseases.
One can attribute many factors behind the high rate of traffic accidents, including reckless drivers and careless pedestrians, as well as the poor conditions of the roads. But the lack of pedestrian facilities -- including walkways, crossing bridges, zebra crosses and traffic lights -- plays a big part.
As Jakarta built more and more roads these last three decades to accommodate the increase in cars and motorcycles, the city neglected the needs of pedestrians.
Good pedestrian facilities can only be found on the roads surrounding the National Monument (Monas) park and on Jl. Thamrin, Jl. Kebon Sirih Raya and Jl. Sudirman.
The lack of, or the poor condition of, pedestrian walkways in the city discourages people from developing walking habits, which any doctor would say is inexpensive, beneficial exercise.
During the rainy season, some of us choose to walk on the road shoulders and take risks to avoid having to thread through walkways clogged with water and mud.
The city administration seems to have neither the commitment nor the power to keep public facilities like walkways clean from dirt and inappropriate uses.
In modern cities like Singapore, London, Tokyo and New York, pedestrian facilities are designed to make walking a pleasant experience. These facilities form an integral part of their transportation systems. The pedestrian walkways, for example, are well-connected to mass rapid transit (MRT) stations to encourage their citizens to use public transportation.
We tend to agree with the growing view that cities today should be judged by how pedestrian-friendly they are. The World Bank has begun developing a method to measure the friendliness of a city in terms of its walkability. The city scores highly if it is equipped with convenient, safe, secure and accessible pedestrian facilities.
The Jakarta city administration can no longer shirk its duty to pedestrians. Good pedestrian walkways should be developed on thoroughfares to facilitate the development of walking habits, not merely to act as urban ornamentation.
Pedestrian-friendly infrastructure should be an integral part of current efforts to improve the public transportation system and encourage more people to leave their cars and motorcycles at home.
Just think of the huge savings in terms of the amount of gasoline burned, and of how much cleaner Jakarta air would be, and of how much money would be saved, from more efficient use of gasoline and lower medical costs because of less pollution.
There is no reason for the city administration to put aside the development of urban infrastructure like pedestrian facilities.
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Robby Kaware (not verified) — Wed, 10/29/2008 - 12:27pm
Allow me to thank The Jakarta Post for raising this issue again and again.
Please make sure the message of this editorial is properly delivered to the authorities of DKI and let us know they response.
If the city is not walkable (or pedestrian friendly), we have absolutely no reason to tell people to leave their cars or motorcycles at home and use public transport instead. Forget it ! The reason is, as the editorial said, public transport and sidewalks are integrated system.
They complement to each other. If sidewalks are not available, there is absolutely no way for people to walk to/from bus or train stations.
At this point, allow me to propose one more lane, i.e., bicycle lane. In other big cities like Holland and US for example, many people ride on bicycles to work. Many of them wear official attires like jackets and ties. The bikes are then taken into the trains or just parked in the train stations.
I believe these lanes for pedestrians and bike are readily applicable in Indonesia because they are simple and cheap infrastructures.
Besides, we have many young and energetic civil engineers and architects from reputable universities (including the governoor Fauzi Bowo himself !) who are competent experts in this subject.
Take Bandung as an example.
If I am not mistaken, ITB is the only university in the country who has City Planning Department as part of Civil Engineering Dept.
But, sadly, public facilities in Bandung is terrible and very unorganized. Severe traffic congestions take place in all over the city. We can hardly find proper pedestrians facilities let alone bike lanes. No more public parks with trees with song birds.
Gone is the beauty of the legendary Parijs van Java during 1940s to 1960s where people can walk leisurely and safely in the cool and peaceful Braga Straat, Alun-alun, etc.
Jean.baneth (not verified) — Wed, 08/27/2008 - 1:16am
I am glad you made this coment. Upon a return visit to Jakarta in May (I lived there from 1975 to 1979) I too was struck by the lack of facilities for pedestrians. They have to dash accross major roads, doidging car treaffic - this is dangerous, humiliating, and exasperating - the exasperation being directed mostly by the poor towrds mostly teh rich. Other cities with heavy car traffic, including New York, provide sidewalks and red lights for pedestrian crossings. Lights can be synchronized so as not to reduce tghe average speed of traffic.
Which mayor of Jakarta will at last do something for pedestrians?