Twelve million vehicles to choke capital in 2011

JAKARTA: The number of vehicles that will crowd Jakarta’s streets is expected to explode to 12 million in 2011 as residents continue to buy new cars.

“Every year, the trend is that the number of private cars and motorbikes continues to rise,” the coordinator of the Jakarta Police Traffic Management Center (TMC) at Comr. Indra Jafar said as quoted by kompas.com on Monday

The current data show 11.3 million vehicles in the capital, 8.2 million of which are motorbikes with 3.1 million cars. This total is expected to rise to 12.06 million next year.

As such, Jakarta, already notorious for its traffic gridlock, will suffer even further.

The total length of Jakarta roads is only 7,650 kilometers with a wide of 40.1 square meters or only 0.26 percent of the city’s total area.

The growth in road length is only 0.01 percent a year, compared with the trend on the growth in car numbers, which is expected to be around 0.6 percent next year.

“We request the city administration to continue revamping the construction of a mass transport system. The existing busway system must be optimized,” Indra added. — JP