City says it wants stronger legal framework for new JTA

The Jakarta administration is urging the central government to provide a stronger legal framework in establishing the planned Greater Jakarta Transportation Authority (JTA), which would enable wider and stronger jurisdiction.

The Office of the Coordinating Economic Minister has been planning to form a single authority to manage transportation in Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi, the establishment of which will be based on a presidential regulation (Perpres).

Sutanto Soehodho, deputy to the Jakarta governor for transportation affairs, told The Jakarta Post that a law would serve as better legal base for the JTA.

“We have a Law on Regional Autonomy, which gives the regional administration authority; the JTA will take back some of that authority. Legally speaking, a law for the JTA, which is higher than a Perpres, is better,” Sutanto said.

The transportation official also said that the JTA needed a wider platform if the new body and the Greater Jakarta transportation master plan were to be successful.

“A great plan would be meaningless without implementation. Implementation needs funding, and this funding would have to be approved by the respective regional legislative councils,” Sutanto said.

In order to ensure the transportation plan is realized, a wider platform that engages both the executive and legislative was needed, he said. “A better one would be a platform that also involved the judiciary in the plan making and implementation,” Sutanto said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Tulus Hutagalung, director of the Greater Jakarta Urban Transportation Policy Integration (JUTPI) Project, announced that the process for the JTA establishment had reached the final preparation stage.

“The JUTPI project has been completed. We have revised and updated the 2004 study on the integrated transportation master plan for Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi [SITRAMP],” said Tulus, who is also a special assistant to the coordinating economic minister on transportation infrastructure.

SITRAMP is a project held with the help of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), aiming at producing an integrated transportation plan to solve traffic problems in the city.

Tulus said that the presidential regulation for the JTA establishment had been drafted.

“The immediate step after the Perpres is issued will be the appointment of the head of the JTA through a presidential decree,” he said.

Keigo Hamada, head of the JICA Urban Transportation Policy Advisor team for the Office of the Coordinating Economic Minister, said that public transportation in Greater Jakarta only catered for 27 percent of the demand.

At the same time, he added, a total of 20,000 hectares of farming land in the area had been turned
into residential areas between 2000 and 2010.

“This is a result of a high urbanization rate in Jakarta,” he said.

With a population of more than 9.5 million in the city and 28 million in the satellite areas of Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi, Jakarta is one of the largest megacities in the world.

A study initiated by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development revealed last year that Jakarta had become a victim of a reliance on road-based transportation, which had led to rising vehicle ownership and the decreasing use of transit systems.

The study criticized Jakarta’s inconsistency in following or enforcing its own master plans, leaving the city with a self-organizing propensity rather than a planned one.

Late last year, the Jakarta Transportation Council said it was urgent that the capital follow major world cities by establishing a single transportation authority.

The council said a good example would be Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA), which is the planner, developer and builder of transport infrastructure and the leaser of those systems to operators, as well as the regulator of rail and taxi services, and the issuer of licenses and registration.