on Jakarta Traffic

This morning was another strange morning with freak weather. There's an angry mini tornado of some sort running amok on the way out from Bintaro, the roads leading out were littered with dead trees and various dirt looking things.

As always, the commute got unbearable. It took me two hours to run errands around in the south before getting to the office completely spent and exhausted. And more than just slightly pissed off.

Of all this talk about The Good of the Nation and the Promises for the People, i wonder how the voters in this country could honestly and sincerely hope for their leaders to do anything right - these people can't even get the traffic right in one city - why would anyone ever think that their lofty ideals are anything more than fables in an election season?

The traffic in Tanah Kusir leading out of Bintaro is the only route out of the South - a residential area housing some 3 million people forced to snake their way through pot holes, crazy junctions, trap lights and mini tornadoes. What drives me nuts is that the choke points are seemingly there by design - a series of stupid one ways that seems to be designed solely to destroy the commuters' life.

The Semanggi Junction is the largest and the most important one in this part of the city - right across the road from the Jakarta Police Headquarter - and also the source of all ills for road users. Plasa Semanggi should be demolished right out and removed for fucking up such a critical infrastructure. At least one lane - in a main road in the capital of the country - is constantly taken over by insane buses loading and unloading and generally hanging out with their other crazy buddy drivers - all the while the Police sit on their asses trying to look important issuing tickets to motorbikes. That the whole mess was caused by a single mall and nobody does anything about it is just how pathetic public policy in this country is.

Mall Ambassador in Casablanca is a another mall situated right on another artery just up the road it's another one that should be gutted down for criminal negligence. It's a monstrosity that was placed exactly to cause the worst possible disruptions to the road users.

Jakarta government recently put up this fancy looking long stretches of pedestrian crossing in Semanggi - i have never seen any one use it since it is ridiculously long, wet, dark and open to the elements, you must be slightly stupid to use it - and yet the crossing in front of Ambassador is a constant choke point at all times. How the developers could stand to sell their pirated knockoffs while making life miserable for the untold million citizens of this country, i never understand. I think Jakarta should impose a massive tax on these guys for the inconvenience caused.

Fauzi Bowo, seems happy enough with his town. He goes round every day promising all the wonderful things that will happen but never did. I don't understand how he gets away with putting his smug face across billboard across the city, one in Kuningan is placed to patronize stuck drivers as the Governor announces some international golf competition.

Uh, Sir, YOUR city is tanking toilet!

The traffic problem in Jakarta is already an urgent and immediate crisis - some economic reports put it at 1 point on the GDP growth - and it's quickly becoming more serious and troubling every day. I can get more things done by flying out to Singapore and back to Jakarta in the late evening than trying to drive around this town chasing people in the different corners. To sustain anymore growth, the city needs a serious commitment in the public infrastructure and it won't ever happen without the support of the national government. SBY's lack of urgency in sorting out the problems right before his very eyes is costing a lot of us far too much - all those campaign songs and promises are good and nice but it ring hollows in the face of reality. Traffic sucks, Jakarta sucks.

Government Sucks!