trafic jam

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Can the Road Crossers be Disciplined?

Everybody knows that traffic jams in Jakarta are acute. The standard explanations for that are too many cars and too many motorcycles as compared to the roads available. The situation is worsened by the non-disciplinary drivers, merchandizes put at the side of the road by unconcerned traders, the cars parked at the side of busy roads, and last but not least people cross the road at will.

Based on the reason for the frequencies of accidents of the road crossers and the traffic slow down caused by their crossing, the city government issued the regional law No. 22, 2009 to forbid and fine the person crossing the road at wrong sites. The law was dormant for some reasons for more than 2 years until the police revived it recently.

Under the law, the police are authorized to fine the road crossers Rp 250,000 (US$ 30) for those who don’t want to cross at zebra-cross, traffic light or crossing bridge fly-over the road. As try-out, the police held 2 weeks “Obedient Operation” this current month (July). At this stage, the police would not fine the violators but guide them to cross at the appointed spots.

After this try-out period, the police will impose a fine to the non-obedient road crossers or confiscate their ID cards to be proceeded to court session for recovering their ID after being fined. 

As it is anticipated, many people complain about the regulation for the reason that there are an insufficient number of the crossing bridges and definitely the number of zebra-crosses. For the latter, the government can easily increase the number of zebra-crosses by simply painting the roads in many spots required. In addition, the fine is considered as unreasonably high as most of the road crossers are low-income persons.   

So we urge the city government to paint Jakarta roads as many zebra-crosses as required and let's hope the citizens will obey the rule.  

Monday, July 18, 2011

Jakarta Celebrates Its Anniversary

Jakarta has just celebrated its 484 years of its anniversary marked by the opening of the Jakarta Fair. The city got the honor from the President of the Republic, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who officially opened the Jakarta Fair on June 09 as the mark of the anniversary. Since it was initiated by Governor Ali Sadikin in 1967 the Jakarta Fair grew bigger and promoted more products nationally as well as internationally.
During the fair, lasting from June 9 to July 10, we could see various entertainments, business activities, displays of new products and possibilities of having business trading partners. Visitors amounting to 4,2 million as compared to 3,8 million people last year were entertained by 250 group bands performing life music successively. More than 2,500 national and international companies took part in Jakarta Fair opening 1,300 stands, not to mention outlets and stalls for sidewalk traders.

The total transaction during the event was Rp3.5 trillion (around US$ 4 billion), wherein the last few days the rate of the transaction was higher to triple because of bigger discounts for buyers. The official of the whole activities’ coordinator, the Jakarta International Expo, said that the expo met with their satisfaction.  

The stipulation of the date of June 22, 1527, as the first establishment of Jakarta, causes recent controversies. It was based on one point in time in history almost 5 centuries ago when Fatahillah a commander of Demak Kingdom won the war against Portuguese.

Previously, in 1521, Portuguese held a treaty with Pakuan-Pajajaran, allowing them to construct a fort in the beach of Sunda Kelapa, which is at the north coast of Jakarta today, and annually receive spices from the kingdom as compensation of the Portuguese protection against the enemies. This event was memorized in Padrao Stone which is now kept in National Museum.



The Prince Fatahillah from Demak, Central Java, in coordination with Cirebon, being afraid that the agreement could hamper Islamic development, attacked Sunda Kelapa as well as Portuguese' fort and took it over. But before Fatahillah launched the full war, Portuguese fled away to Malacca where they felt more secure. Meanwhile, the locals, the Betawian people, were driven out without any resistance to the hinterland. The day was coined as Jayakarta, the victory day, taken as the original name of ancient Jakarta.

Some noted Betawian, however, were not happy with the stipulation and prefer instead the date of September 3, 1945, when Soekano stipulated Jakarta as a municipal. Albeit the controversies, as Jakarta has grown for the better, let’s all city residents celebrate the anniversary with joy.