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akarta, the city with the '€œworst traffic in the world'€, as many say, plans to open at least 16 new transit routes and develop six-inner city toll roads. This could be viewed as a great move to improve mobility and ease congestion, but a closer look at the plan and the maps, revealed in a recent stakeholders meeting at the Urban Planning Agency'€™s office at City Hall, shows a lack of an overarching plan, which could lead to disaster instead.

Representatives of five public transit firms and a toll road developer sat together to compare notes: PT Jakarta Propertindo in the construction of the Jakarta administration'€™s light rail transit (LRT), PT Adhi Karya for the central government'€™s LRT, state-owned railway company PT KAI for the city'€™s commuter line and train to the airport, PT Mass Rapid Transit Jakarta (MRT Jakarta) for the MRT, PT Transportasi Jakarta (Transjakarta) for Transjakarta busway and PT Jakarta Tollroad Developer (JTD) for six inner toll roads.

Apparently, each stakeholder designed its own detailed routes without consulting any of the others or any master plan. It turns out some even disregarded existing routes. The plan of a route in Adhi Karya'€™s LRT, for example, has a supporting pillar in the middle of an existing Transjakarta lane in Kuningan, South Jakarta.

The map also shows that the six inner toll roads will overlap with other modes'€™ routes, both �existing or planned. It will overlap with the MRT, Transjakarta, the commuter line and the LRT. The six inner toll road projects have also been criticized by urban planners, who say that it has been proven in cities around the world that more roads do not necessarily mean less congestion.

Urban planners have added that the absence of an overarching plan for transportation in Greater Jakarta is a result of utter disregard for the spatial planning bylaw. Urban planner Nirwono Joga said the city administration often thought that when a public project did not involve public money, such as from the national or city budget, a private company did not have to follow the spatial planning bylaw.

This is wrong, he says, because when inviting the participation of the private sector, the administration should give companies the city masterplan first, and only then offer routes that no one has been commissioned. And, of course, a company cannot propose its own route and change the bylaw later.

Another urban planner, Yayat Supriyatna, said the six inner toll road projects violated the 2012 spatial planning bylaw.

Most urban planners know that disregard for the spatial planning bylaw, often for the sake of private developers, is rampant on the part of the administration. Officials simply dismiss the matter, claiming that it is easy to revise the law every five years.

Jakarta should have learned a lesson from the monorail project '€” proposed and construction started hastily under governor Sutiyoso in 2003.

The neglected pillars should be a reminder to decision-makers that Jakartans don'€™t need bad planning that serves only the companies eager for projects anymore.