Force Vehicles Off Roads to Cut Gridlock: Expert

On the same day the nation’s largest car and motorcycle dealer predicted record sales, a scientist warned that the only way Jakarta would solve its massive traffic problems was by curbing vehicle ownership.

With too few roads and massive numbers of new vehicles rolling out every day, traffic was only going to get worse, Lukman Hakim, deputy chairman of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said during a seminar on mass transportation in the capital on Wednesday.

“In Jakarta, the number of cars being sold has increased and now reaches 300 units daily, while motorcycles could soon rise to 800 a day,” he told the German-Asean Conference on Mass Transport Technologies.

The startling figures came on the same day PT Astra International forecast record nationwide sales for motorcycles and cars. “We are optimistic we will surpass the 2008 record of 607,000 cars and 6.5 million motorcycles this year,” said Prijono Sugiarto, Astra’s president director.

He said favorable economic conditions had driven new car sales up 73 percent over the past year. In the first quarter of this year, motorcycle sales increased by 35 percent to 1.6 million units.

While the figures were positive for the country’s economic outlook, it also meant more gridlock for the besieged capital, Lukman said.
“Vehicle ownership should be limited [in Jakarta],” he said bluntly.

Traffic experts frequently cite the paucity of roadways in Jakarta, which make up only about 6.2 percent of its total area, as compared with metropolises such as Singapore, New York City and Tokyo, which devote up to 20 percent of their city space to roads.

With about 1.5 million vehicles in Jakarta squeezed onto roads that can only handle about one million, according to 2009 estimates from several experts, the result is a jumbled nightmare of mostly private vehicles — public transportation makes up only about 8 percent of all vehicles.

“It’s not surprising that we see traffic jams every day during peak hour,” Lukman said, “even on toll roads that were built to reduce traffic.”

He said the snarl was also a threat to the economy. Citing research by Firdaus Ali, an environment expert at the University of Indonesia, Lukman said traffic jams in the Greater Jakarta area were estimated to cost more than Rp 26 trillion ($2.8 billion) every year. “Gasoline accounts for Rp 10.7 trillion, productive time lost Rp 9.7 trillion and health costs about Rp 5.8 trillion,” he said.

Lukman strongly urged the government to start drafting regulations to limit vehicle ownership in the city. Common ways to reduce ownership are through punitive taxes on second and subsequent cars in each family, increasing taxes at the pump or by charging for road usage, such as with electronic road pricing, which is currently being considered by the government.

Such methods, however, are often criticized for unfairly penalizing the poor.

As if on cue, an official at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources on Wednesday said the agency was considering restricting motorcycle users from buying subsidized gas.

Evita Legowo, director general of oil and gas at the ministry, said the idea to bar motorcyclists from using the low-octane subsidized fuel was the result of a meeting with the Indonesian Motorcycle Industry Association (AISI).

Lukman, however, warned that greater efforts were needed beyond curbing subsidized gas. He said alternative modes of transportation had to be developed.

“Ownership limitations can only be implemented if the government builds an effective mass rapid transportation system. A number of countries have high-tech MRT systems, specializing in train technology,” he said.

Jakarta’s long-delayed MRT has still not broken ground despite repeated promises. The design for a limited first phase is to be finished this year, with construction due to start in 2012 — if all goes well, 14.5 kilometers of rail will be in operation by 2016.