Welcome to Jakarta.
A city of extravaganza.
A catwalk for fashionista.
What do you do for your Christmas?
Hey world! Long time no see you guys! So as the title speaks, what do you do for your Christmas? I’m going to share what Jakarta do for its Christmas!
1. Our Governor Inspect Churches
Credit to: http://www.Kompas.com
You might ask, why Governor and police come down to the churches? Joko Widodo is one of those governor who are close to his people in Jakarta. He has already been exposed to the world that he is the agent of change in Indonesia. Previously governors in Jakarta Province will not come down and only let his personnel and officer to do the job. It may be weird for you guys, but it is completely necessary in Indonesia. Indonesia is a diverse nation. However, some terrorists might attack churches. Government commitment to guarantee safety of every Christians is to provide security service to the church.
2. Malls End of Season Discounts
Credit to: http://faithin9od.wordpress.com/
Jakarta is not an ordinary city. This city is filled with so many attractions like malls and museums. One notable experience in Jakarta is shopping experiences. Jakarta offers a lot of events that make shopping become fun. For instance, during Christmas and New Year, there are a lot of vendors like Louis Vuitton, Salvatore Ferragamo, Gucci and meny more offers the end of season sales that offer attractive discounts.
3. Loose Traffic
Jakarta is always friendly during the holiday season. The traffic in Jakarta are reduced as much as 50% of the working days traffic. Some roads that are always stuck during the working days are loose. Roads like Bundaran HI, Jalan Jenderal Sudirman and Jalan Gatot Subroto is seen to be loose.
I thank that what Jakarta do during the Christmas Season. Despite of its mess, Jakarta still has the charm that fascinates people and attract tourist to come to Jakarta. What about you? Will you come to Jakarta?
Jakarta Mega Jam
Jakarta – Traffic Jam is a Usual View
Hello world! As you may have read in my profile, I am a proud Indonesian. I love this country and proud to be a citizen in one of Asian Tiger. This country is unique in its own way, we are all different but we are all one. That is reflected in our motto “Bhinneka Tunggal Ika” which means unity in diversity.
Indonesia is situated at the strategic geographical position. Mallaca strait, Java Sea and Indian Ocean has a long history of global vessel routes. With lush natural resources and cultural exoticism, Indonesia is a beautiful country. Our capital city is Jakarta. Jakarta is one of the most economically-developed city in Indonesia. Just take a look below the skyline of our proud metropolitan center.
Jakarta Bundaran HI Area (credit to: http://www.habegraphy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Jakarta-1600×1200.jpg)
Aside from its beauty, Jakarta face many problems. As you have read on the title, Jakarta famous for its ugly face like Traffic Jams. Many people has already said “Ibukota lebih kejam daripada Ibu tiri” which means Capital city (Jakarta) is crueler than step mother (since both words contain “ibu” which means Mother) which Traffic Jam is one of the cruelty that can screw your life in Jakarta.
Car Volume vs. Road Stretch and Length
Traffic Jam at Jalan Gatot Subroto. Credit to: http://assets.kompas.com/data/photo/2012/11/05/1325198620X310.jpg
Traffic Jam is one of classic problem that exist in Jakarta. As the most developed city in Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many worker from its surrounding and all over Indonesia. They believe that Jakarta offers a great opportunity for everyone in Indonesia. This attract commuters from the surrounding cities like Depok, Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi. This is not that bad if it is supported by adequate commuter public transport. However, in reality Jakarta does not have adequate transport and causes more people to choose private transport over public transport. As the road in Jakarta is limited while private cars increases over the year, traffic jams become worse. This increases travel time inside Jakarta itself. As you can see at the photo, all lanes of road on both ways suffers a crazy gridlock. Even on the highway, you will face a crazy traffic jam.
Uncooperative Road Users
Illegal Parking. Credit to: http://info-nesia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Tertibkan-Juru-Parkir-Liar-Untuk-Kurangi-Kemacetan.jpg
Other cause of traffic jam is the road users are not cooperative to obey the road sign and traffic light. These road users parks illegally and does not stop when the traffic light is red. Look at this image. You can see that there are a lot if illegal parking that consume the width of the road. This worsen the traffic in Jakarta. You may say that these illegal parking also happen in most of the busy road in Jakarta. Fortunately, current governor administration has already initiated effort to reduce illegal parking on busy traffic roads.
Cars that goes into busway lane. Credit to: http://statik.tempo.co/data/2013/08/19/id_211198/211198_620.jpg
Other law violation on the road that usually happen is that a lot of private cars take busway lane which is illegal in Jakarta. Therefore, Busway that is supposed to solve Jakarta traffic problem is not effective enough as it is also trapped into the bad traffic. To eradicate this, “Dinas Perhubungan DKI Jakarta” or Transportation Department of Jakarta with the help of Police Officer will fine anyone who take busway lane.
Gridlock caused by Ignoring Traffic Light. Credit to: http://limatahunkedepan.blogspot.com/2011/04/adam-levine-antara-lampu-merah-dan.html
One of the most problematic road law violation in Jakarta is road users ignores traffic light. If you see any jokes in websites stating that in Indonesia, green means you are allowed to go, yellow means you have to rush before red and red light means if there is still lines of car in front of you, you may go is true and really true. This mentality makes Jakarta traffic even worse. Imagine you are on intersection, usually when traffic light change to red there must be some line of cars that has not left the center of intersection. With that mentality, the road users who are at back of those lines will go on and causes the center of the intersection to be full. The road that is currently green light will also go. However, since there are lines of cars, the road users that is supposed to go can not go through and causes jams. When the green turns into red, same mentality applies and other stream of cars will follow. With this, you can imagine how long will it be to go through this gridlock. When I was on my way to Monas, I have to wait for 30 minutes just to go through this gridlock. This problem, we could not blame the government but on the road users. They should have realized that this behavior will make traffic worse and causes gridlock that will increase the travel time.
Street Vendors on the Busy Road
Street vendors swarm on the street. Credit to: http://data.tribunnews.com/foto/bank/images/20130713_pkl-tanahabang_9572.jpg
For the lower class level, more people come to Jakarta to find opportunity and gamble all their might to Jakarta to find jobs. However, since most of them don’t have the skills required causes them to make traffic even worse by building vendors on the street. This is illegal according to the provincial regulation. However, since the previous government did not eradicate this, more vendors come to Jakarta and make road block at several area. This makes Jakarta jams even more. The image you see above is Tanah Abang at central Jakarta. Since the road is blocked by street vendors, we could not go through this road. Fortunately, now the street vendors has been moved to the traditional market building provided by government.
Inadequate and Inconvenient Public Transit
Transjakarta or Busway. Credit to: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/57/TransJakarta_Bundaran_HI_1.jpg/640px-TransJakarta_Bundaran_HI_1.jpg
One thing that I like in Jakarta is the availability of public transport. However, not all public transport in Jakarta is safe, convenient and on time. Busway or Transjakarta is one of them. For now, busway is still the best public transport. The problem with it is the inadequate number of buses. As the result the shelter is usually full at the peak hour and crowded. Since it is inadequate, sometimes I have to wait for 1 to 2 hours for just riding it. Look at the image below to let you imagine how crowded the shelter is.
Crowded shelter. Credit to:https://platinumlifenews.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/5a197-banyakamat.jpg
The crowd shows that busway itself is not enough since the bus procurement by the operator is slow and inadequate. Vice governor of Jakarta, therefore, has planned to procure 400 more buses to increase the number of buses and decrease the crowd at the shelter. This will significantly increase busway usage and lower the private car usage.
Angkot, Metromini and Kopaja “ngetem”. Credit to: http://www.jpnn.com/picture/thumbnail/20130611_053755/053755_48729_Angkot_Jakarta_____________HL1.jpg
Other problem is that not all public transport are directly managed by one management. This create problem because as more and more private operator on Angkot, Metromini and Kopaja (all of them are public transport mode) create more problem of driver misbehavior. Many of the driver do “ngetem” or stops at a non-designated stops or simply just stop anywhere to take and leave passengers. Some traditional mode like Bajaj and Becak also creates problem because of the same “ngetem” behavior. The only solution to stop this is to take over the management of Kopaja, Metromini and Angkot while eliminate any traditional transportation mode like becak and bajaj.
There is hope…
Jakarta MRT Rendering. Credit to: http://www.jakarta.go.id/web/uploads/files/mrtjakarta.jpg
Even though Jakarta has a lot of problems in terms of its traffic, there is still hope for Jakarta. The current governor has already started the MRT and Monorail project in Jakarta. We hope that it will finish by 2018 for the first line and reduce the traffic above the road. Other programs by the governor to increase mobility inside Jakarta is to build Monorail, build flyover, build toll roads, build 3 more corridors for busway, implement ERP and many more effort to solve traffic problem in Jakarta. I hope that the program can finish at the right time and make Jakarta a nice city with a very loose traffic.
That is all and please kindly give your view against this issue. I will post other thing that matters to me later. See ya all!
The Platinum Life 
