There are two things in Jakarta, among others, that are different compared to a few years ago.
The first is how hot it is during the day. The temperature reading in Jakarta for some days in the last couple of months reached 36-37 degrees Celsius - a level which other countries normally experience in the summer months.
The second is the excessive number of motorbikes on the road. If you are traveling in a car you can often be surrounded by up to six motorbikes!
Then on every street corner between major roads and housing complexes, there are a dozen or so motorbikes parked in a row on the roadside with their drivers offered their ojek (motorcycle taxi) services.
If we look at the most recent data, the trends surprise us. In 1993, the average temperature in Jakarta was 28.02 C, but in 2003 it rose to 30.67 C, which means an average increase of 0.26 C per year. Fortunately, the data says the average temperature in 2007 was 29.35 C. But the trend suggests that the average temperature is slowly rising.
The increase in the number of vehicles in Jakarta, especially the motorbike, is even more shocking. If in 1998 the total number of vehicles was only around 3 million and increased to around 4 million in 2002, the number has doubled to 8 million in 2006.
An exponential growth is shown in the motorcycle category, where in 2002 there were only 2.2 million, the figure increased to 5.3 million in 2006. Thus the motorbike-to-car ratio that used to be 1.25 is now perhaps 2.5. With the current rate, it is conceivable that there are more than 10 million vehicles in Jakarta at the moment.
Usually, the growth in number of vehicles is met by construction of roads, but this is not what has happened in Jakarta. The official figures (Jakarta in Figures) suggest that the length of roads in Jakarta has decreased from 7,616 kilometers in 2003 to 6,540 kilometers in 2006, while the road area decreased from 4,777 hectares in 2003 to 4,154 hectares in 2006. Except for the toll and the primary arterial roads, all other types of road are decreasing in length and area.
Little wonder then if traffic congestion in Jakarta is getting worse every day. It is not because some of the road lanes are dedicated to busways, but, because there is no new construction of roads except for the toll or national roads, the old provincial and municipal roads may have been converted for other uses.
Governor Fauzi Bowo stated in his presentation at the East Asia Summit Conference on Livable Cities in Singapore last year that the first two programs of his administration toward sustainable city development were development of green open spaces and the mass rapid transportation project, which included an MRT, an LRT and the busway. Thus it is a conscious decision of the leadership of Jakarta not to expand the road network, but instead, focus on the development of mass rapid transit systems, and perhaps even allow the conversion of roads into open spaces.
This is probably a wise decision in order to achieve its sustainability goal. The mass rapid transit system is absolutely needed in a megacity like Jakarta.
It is more effective in transporting people between points in the city. It is also cost-efficient for the passengers; you can go from Kampung Rambutan to Ancol for just Rp 3,500 (36 US cents), or pay only Rp 2,000 before 7 in the morning or after 10 at night.
However, for the busway management, the system will only be economic if the passenger numbers reach the required level. For potential passengers this means a trade-off between being cost-efficient or convenient. If the busway network is fully extended, the number of buses is increased and the travel time is reduced, the trade-off will be solved. Otherwise, they will continue to drive their cars or ride motorbikes. Thus sustaining the transit system in competition with the convenience of private vehicles is an issue here. Some suggestions to solve this issue are as follows:
First, transit-oriented development should be complementing the mass rapid transportation project that Jakarta has at present. The transit system network must reach the main centers of population and economic activity and the land use along the routes must be developed efficiently in order to support the system.
Second, the use of natural-gas-fuelled buses would support the sustainability goal of Jakarta, and would contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions. Central government needs to fully support our automotive industries that are planning to produce mass transit vehicles using gas as fuel, and to increase the number of gas station in our cities. Increasing the number of buses using liquefied natural gas (LNG) for the busway network would increase its frequency and therefore passenger numbers.
Third, the improvement of the busway timetable management, by timing the departures and arrivals at each stop, would guarantee riders that not only will they reach their destinations at a certain time, but it should be faster than private vehicles.
These efforts would gradually attract the passengers of private cars or motorbikes to shift to the transit system and would eventually reduce the number of vehicles on the roads. Thus when we have fewer vehicles on the road, it would be acceptable to convert the roads into green areas. That would beautify the city and hopefully reduce the average temperature in order to cool down our tempers!
The writer is a lecturer in the School of Architecture, Planning and Policy Development, Bandung Institute of Technology.
