Improving Public Transportation to Solve Jakarta’s Traffic

Indonesia has a lot of problems that should be faced. One of them is the infrastructure in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. Traffic jam, air pollution, jobless people, and the crowd have been the most major problems that we can see. To solve the traffic jam, there are many alternatives that the government can use but not all of them can be the best alternative. I think, Indonesia government should spend more money on improving public transport whether in Jakarta or in another city or province. According to JakartaTravelInfo.com, city of Jakarta is about 8,500,000 people live in there. The government should provide more public transportation for them. It is all because there are already many existing public transportation system that can be continued, public transportation can help to reduce air pollution rather than having many private vehicle, and with adding public transportation, there will be many working fields for the jobless people.

As we know, the government has been creating a few public transportation system such as Trans-Jakarta, railway, ferry crossing and others. It will be great if the government continue the existing public transportation. Trans-Jakarta (or people usually call it busway) is in progress giving transportation service for Jakarta people. We can take a Trans-Jakarta bus from Harmoni central busway to Bekasi or other place. For railway, the transportation ministry also plans to make a railway system that will provide direct access to Tanjung Priok port, and from Manggarai station to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, which will cost Rp 2 trillion (Jusman, The Jakarta Post). If the government could arrange the budget and use it effective and efficiently, Jakarta people will be serviced by many kind of public transportation.

Improving public transportation also can reduce the air pollution that always be a problem to the citizen. Imagine if 50 people that can fit into one bus or Trans-Jakarta bus are using their private vehicle. It is 1 bus equal to 50 cars that will make air polluted.
On the other hand, with adding and renew the public transportation, it will provide many working fields for the jobless people that the number of it is very high. For bus, at least it needs 3 people work in it, and for a train or subway, at least it needs 5 people to work in it.

Rather than the other alternatives such as expanding roads or decreasing the sell of private vehicle, I think that improving public transportation is the best way to solve the traffic jam in Jakarta. The government can not re-build the city construction, so they have to provide and spend more money to make a good public transportation.

(30 June 2008)