J

akarta has seen a so-called positive reaction from the public in response to the city administration’s plans to intensify car-free days to one day a week to improve Jakarta’s air quality. While the policy deserves accolade, a question arises as to why the administration looks reluctant to explore other, more significant ways of reducing air pollution.

Car-free days are stipulated in city Bylaw No. 2/2005 on Air Pollution Control, which requires each of Jakarta’s five municipalities to hold their own car-free days once a month.

On the new car-free day, the city administration closes off adjoining main thoroughfares Jl. Sudirman and Jl. Thamrin in Central Jakarta from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. every Sunday and a number of streets in each municipality once a month.

The city government is surely aware that the bylaw also stipulates a requirement to expand green areas, to use gas for all public transportation and to improve public transportation services to reduce vehicles running on the city’s congested roads.

Jakarta unquestionably needs to work harder to clean its air, which the World Health Organization (WHO) rated as the third worst in terms of quality after Bangkok and Mexico City in 1997. While Bangkok has managed to improve its public transportation, which has believed to have significantly improved its air quality, Jakarta’s air pollution is said to have worsened due to the growing population of motorized vehicles.

Experts have said that car-free days contribute little to the reduction of air pollution from carbon emissions, as they take effect for only five hours a week on selected roads.

It is regrettable, therefore, that the mandatory use of gas for public transportation has not been realized in the city. Fuel gas stations remain rare in Jakarta, speaking volumes for the lack of infrastructure to support the policy.

The city administration has also failed to significantly expand green areas as required by the city bylaw and the national spatial plan law. Existing green areas in Jakarta only account for less than 10 percent of the city’s territory, far behind the threshold of 30 percent.

Therefore, we believe that the decision to increase car-free days was not motivated by the city authorities’ will to improve air quality, but was instead driven by the rationale that it was the easiest move to take. Meanwhile, the city needs to work harder to implant the other policies.

For the sake of a clean sky, it is imperative for the city government to fight to improve public transportation, expand greenbelt and build infrastructure that supports the conversion of fuel to gas for transportation, all of which have been obligations that it has been unable to fulfill.