Gridlock: City puts brakes on transportation rules

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The Jakarta Transportation Agency has grown anxious in waiting for the City Council to pass number of new bylaws that the agency claimed would expedite improvements in the city’s traffic management.

Agency chief Udar Pristono said that the four regulations were transportation, Transjakarta Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) regionally owned company, BRT networks and parking fee bylaws.

“These four bylaws were discussed with and by the council last year. We need the new laws to improve our service,” Udar said.

The agency head said that draft bylaws had been submitted to the Council’s Regional Legislation Body (Balegda) and had been repeatedly revised.

“We don’t expect to wait much longer. The sooner they’re passed the better. The administration still need to draft and issue operational regulations for the bylaws to work,” Udar said.

Many bylaws, once passed, remained paper tigers because the city administration fails to enact them, often citing a lack of funding from the city budget.

The bylaws will regulate, among other matters, interconnection between transportation modes, transportation network development, private vehicles, traffic management, electronic road pricing (ERP), vehicle age restrictions, motorcycle usage, on-street parking and parking garages.

Transportation is one of the main problems choking the capital.

 Public transportation fall short of the people’s demands, leading to a surge in private vehicles.

Council deputy speaker Triwisaksana, who also chairs Balegda, said separately Tuesday that the Council was prioritizing deliberation of the transportation bylaw.

“This bylaw will serve as an umbrella for the other three bylaws. It would synchronize them,” Triwisaksana said.

He promised the bylaws would be deliberated and passed in October.

The transportation bylaw draft is currently being dealt with simultaneously with the Detail Spatial Plan and Zoning Regulations, locally known by the acronym RDTR.

The RDTR draft is derived from the city’s 2011–2030 spatial planning bylaw (RTRW), which provides macro-level policy instructions for the development of the city. The RDTR will serve as a set of implementation guidelines.

Selamat Nurdin, the chairman of the Council’s Commission B, overseeing transportation and city-owned enterprises, said that work on the transportation-related bylaws would have to wait until the Sept. 20 election was over.

“These bylaws discuss matters that could easily be used as a political tool and could lead to friction,” Selamat, a councillor from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), said.

One example, Selamat elaborated, was the parking bylaw which would increase parking fees.

“It could lead to public protests and easily be politicized,” he said.

The city administration has said the proposed fee hike was an effort to deter commuters from using private vehicles.

Encouraging commuters to use public transportation instead of their own cars will eventually reduce the capital’s congestion.

Early proposals suggested that parking on-street parking fees for cars should increase from Rp 1,000 (10 US cents) to Rp 4,000 per hour and from Rp 500 to Rp 2,000 per hour for motorcycles.