Agency rejects relinquishing transportation authority

The City Public Works Agency has flatly rejected a proposal from the Jakarta Transportation Council (DTKJ) to hand over its authority on transportation infrastructure to the Transportation Agency.

“Infrastructure development should be under one coordination. It would be difficult for multiple organizations to handle it,” Public Works Agency head Ery Basworo said on Wednesday.

Ery said that the construction of roads and bridges in the city was closely related to water channel projects.

“We have many water channels located adjacent to, or even under main roads. We will have problems with coordination if two different agencies handle them,” he said.

The council issued a recommendation for Governor Fauzi Bowo to place construction and management of road and bridges under the Transportation Agency.

DTKJ member Iskandar Abubakar said that the measure would take Jakarta one step closer to having a single organization that could make decisions on transportation issues in order to solve traffic problems in the city.

Iskandar said that multiple agencies handled transportation in the city. The agencies include the Public Works Agency, the Transportation Agency, the Spatial Planning Agency and state-owned commuter train operator PT Kereta Commuter Jabodetabek (KCJ).

“The current system is prone to poor coordination between the institutions,” Iskandar said.

Poor coordination was blamed for the worsening traffic congestion in downtown Jakarta soon after the Public Works Agency started a construction project on culverts along Jl. Jend. Sudirman in South Jakarta earlier this month.

The construction of the two new culverts, each of which is 1.1 kilometers long and between 1.2 and 1.5 meters wide, has taken up a lane on each side of the street, one of the busiest thoroughfares in the capital.

The city administration has admitted that the traffic woes were the result of a lack of communication between the contractor, the Public Works Agency, the Transportation Agency and the Jakarta Traffic Police.

Separately, Jakarta administration secretary Fadjar Panjaitan said that breaking up a city agency would not be simple.

“It would require many regulation changes and also the issuance of new laws and ordinances,” Fadjar said.

Fadjar also said the existing arrangement had served the city well.

“There are some small problems, but nothing that we can’t handle,” Fadjar said.