Jakarta will change to Curitiba... maybe. hopefully. someday?

Pictures of the legs of highway under construction

Because Jakarta’s traffic is so bad, the government FINALLY took action by making an additional road over one of the busiest roads in Jakarta. When I first saw this, I was so happy because this road was the reason why i had to sit in my barely moving car for more than an hour. But this opinion completely changed after I watched a video on Curitiba, Brazil. In the video, one of the architect said widening the roads will not solve the problem of traffic. At that moment it reminded me of the picture above because all this is going to do is temporary no-traffic period (2~3 years). Jakarta adds more than 600 cars and 3,000 motorcycles each day so it is just a matter of time how fast both roads will be filled with vehicles. Curitiba solved all their problems such as floods, bad management of trash and bad traffic. I mean if Curitiba could do it, why not Jakarta? Well, Jakarta has the same problems as Curitiba used to have. I really hope Jakarta will change to a city like Curitiba.

However, the thing that makes me unhappy the most is that the construction is predicted to be done in 2 years but that is exactly when I leave Jakarta for college… I will be suffocating in worsened traffic from blocked roads for construction wasting my time during my hardest time of student life- junior and senior year. So not only will I lose patience all the time but also will miss the traffic-free roads after i leave.

Urbanization of Jakarta

Jakarta's CBD

Jakarta is considered as a megacity (population over 10 million) and therefore needs space for all those people to stay and work. However since not all places in Jakarta is appropriate for such business, where ever fits, is crowded with tall buildings. The picture above is one of those locations where people are attracted to. I think this urbanization is 9verall good for the city because although it causes pollution and traffic, Indonesia has to develp to an MEDC in order to devise ways to prevent the problems they've caused. Initially, I though what's the point of polluting the city at the first place just to solve that problem in the future? But this actually makes sense because the process of urbanization will reverse the affect of pollution since there will be more human resources in the 'brain' of the country. For example, not only will Jakarta solve its past problems, but also improve the environment to an eco-friendly city.

Picture taken from my house of the road next to Pacific Place mall.

This is the day when I was stuck in traffic for more than an hour when it normally takes 5 minutes. This is the day when some students arrived home past midnight. This is the day when you can say Jakarta’s traffic is just more than a nightmare. I have lived in Indonesia for almost exactly 16 years and have never in my life experienced traffic this bad. It seems like traffic has gotten noticeably bad just recently. The reasons for this are increasing population and the slow process of highway construction on a regularly used road. Firstly, Indonesia has the 4^th largest population in the world with most people living in Jakarta so although the city is already overpopulated, more people are having children for population growth and more are migrating in. Thus resulting more cars and more motorcycles. Secondly, JL Antasari, a long road where traffic is bad, is under construction which reduced from 4 lanes to 2! Therefore the traffic is worse also affecting many other roads. It is not the fact that they are renovating the road that is the problem but the fact that the process is too slow.

I think Jakarta’s future will be something like the picture shown where you will be stuck everyday especially worse after raining. However to reduce this there are some possible solutions to the present problems. For overpopulation, the government can limit the number of immigrants. For the second problem, the workers can speed up their process by working at night too. Although that may disturb people’s sleep for some time, I think they would prefer that to suffering in the car from traffic. The government says it will take around 1 year to finish the highway above JL Antasari but in my opinion with that slow process, it will take 3 years. However with suggestions above, Jakarta’s traffic wouldn’t be as bad as today in the future.