Traffic Jam and Our Transportation Problems

In a countdown of the 20 largest urban areas on the planet according to the 2015 edition of Demographia’s world Urban Area index, Jakarta – Indonesia has been ranked second as a most populated city in the world. There are about 30.5 million people come from various regions live in Jakarta in a way to meet their life needs. Urbanization can’t be denied as a Jakarta 21 century phenomena which raises problems in each life aspects.

One of those problems is traffic congestion we find at a certain times in every Jakarta road, especially in the rush hour. The term “Bumper to Bumper” that refers to traffic congestion has been booming since 2005 and more often heard between commuters nowadays. They have to sit for a long time stuck in a traffic jam for 3 hours only for traveling 14 KM, it really wastes our priceless time, doesn’t it?. It is not strange that The Castrol-Magnatic Stop-Start Index, according to beritasatu.com on Feb 2015, ranked Jakarta-Indonesia in first level as a city with the wrost stop-start traffic jam among motorist across the globe, while Surabaya ranked fourth. Eventhough many factos caused that, the main factor is two; They are infinite-production of vehicle, and the inequality of population distribution that pile up in Jakarta.

Do you still remember the death of 17 persons because of traffic congestion in Brebes past year? Could you imagine that? Well, we can’t blame the traffic congestion at all, but logically, if it didn’t happened, if the traffic could just run smoothly, there wouldn’t be victims. We are often handicapped by traffic congestion. Coming late at work affecting postponed tasks, precluding policeman who is running after criminal and ambulance who is bringing emergency patient, It also increases the number of respiratory deases sufferer caused by the poor of air quality. Those all proved that traffic congestion have big influence for the survival of people.

The Governor of Jakarta has been busy, since this traffic jam getting worse, trying to solve the problem. One of his effort is providing public transportation as good as possible to decrease the severe congestion that occurs. Such as busway and MRT system that is still in progress. We can find many public transportion such as Kopaja, TransJakarta, Commuterline, Metromini, Gojek, Uber, and any other more.

However; In the reality, it has no big impact as commuters are still using their privat vehicles. As long as people are still using they own vehicle, public transportation wouldn’t work to decrease the traffic jam. Well, using our own vehicle is more economic. But let’s calculate: using privat vehicle might keep money in our pocket stay longer, while using public transportation might decrease traffic congestion and automatically will reduce problems caused by it. You know guys? A wiseman always choose the right choice to create a better world.

*Penulis adalah mahasantri semester 2 Darus-Sunnah International Institute for Hadith Sciences dan mahasiswa jurusan Bahasa dan Sastra Inggris UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta