Traffic In Jakarta

You know what's the problem with Jakarta?

It's transport infrastructure.

I've covered this before 2 years ago and today it is still the same. Traffic is an absolute slow crawl because there are just too many vehicles on the road, the the road system is just not conducive enough to unclog these mass orgies of traffic jams on a daily basis. It's public transport system is also not good enough. There are not enough buses, trains nor even good enough pavements for the public to use. Anyone coming from the airport can take between half an hour to a staggering three hours (!!!), depending on the traffic conditions on the day.

The road system is also very archaic. There is little use of traffic lights or roundabouts to allow any changes in direction. Most of this can only be done at major roundabouts in the heart of the city. What this means is that if you missed a turn, or if you see your hotel on the opposite side of the road, there won't be any slip road to allow you to turn in. Instead, you have to wait till the next available roundabout which could be up to one kilometer away, in the jam. Personally I have experienced for myself, a half hour wait in the taxi to get through the sprawling jam to the next roundabout and make a U-turn, even though my destination was just on the opposite side of the road not far from where I began my journey.

And yet walking is also not a very good option. The roads used to be unsafe as it was easy to get mugged. Even though that is all cleaned up now, there are hardly any pavements for walking. Even if there were, there would be a long distance to walk primarily because one building to another tends to be rather far apart and commercial buildings tend to be pretty far from retail centres.

Of course with the new president, Jokowi, many are very hopeful that finally there will be change in many things and transport infrastructure is one of them. With Jokowi at the helm, the mantel of Jakarta Mayor actually went to his no2 in Jakarta, Mr Basuki (Ahok), the first mayor of Jakarta of Chinese descent. So there is actually much hope that he will bring about positive developments for Jakarta in the years to come.

Traffic here is also so bad that it is a norm to actually be late, often citing traffic as the key reason for missing appointments.

Yesterday a client actually said he took two hours, just to travel a mere 3km to meet us. What a joke.

I can actually see the MRT finally being worked on, after >10yrs of crowing about its eventuality. So that is one good sign to come.

Am very hopeful for Jakarta to grow even faster as a city in time to come!