Novia D. Rulistia, Jakarta – No matter who wins the gubernatorial race, voters only want a governor who can prioritize the resolution of Jakarta's transportation and flooding problems, a survey concluded.
The survey by Cirus Surveyors said that 34.25 percent of the total respondents expected the new administration to immediately fix and develop the public transportation system along with thorough road repair plans.
"While 24.38 percent of respondents say that they want the new governor to solve the flooding issue," Cirus' executive director Andrinof Chaniago said on Sunday.
Andrinof said that other issues that must be tackled immediately by the new administration included traffic congestion (at 18.38 percent), education (at 5.25 percent), the economy (at 3.5 percent) and housing (at 0.88 percent).
The survey was conducted between April 13 and April 20 by directly interviewing 800 respondents in 80 districts across Jakarta. The survey's margin of error was 3.46 percent.
In relation to a separate question on the survey, Andrinof said that, 42.11 percent of respondents also expected the newly elected governor to improve services dealing with the city's horrendous traffic congestion. Additionally, when asked, 22.68 percent of respondents said that flood prevention was a key issue.
The survey also showed that more than 50 percent of respondents believed that the habits of public transportation, always stopping to wait for passengers (known locally as ngetem), were the main causes of the city's traffic jams.
The list of causes of traffic jams in the capital was then followed by a bottleneck road system, damaged roads, puddles, the absence of pedestrian bridges that caused people choose to cross the street anywhere, the position of toll gates and the vast number of vehicles in the city.
Jakarta is home to 11.3 million motor vehicles and has an official population of 9.6 million, with the number continuing to grow. Around 1,500 new motorcycles and 500 new cars hit the roads each day.
The amount of privately owned vehicles in Jakarta outnumbers the total fleet of public transportation, which reaches only 76,000 units, most of which are taxis.
The number of private vehicles on the streets of the capital grows by 9.5 percent every year, while the road network expands only 0.01 percent per year.
Nationwide, the Association of Indonesian Automotive Manufacturers Association (Gaikindo) said that 893,420 automobile units were sold in 2011, a 17 percent increase from 764.710 units sold in 2010. It also said that most of the cars were sold in the capital.
According to a study by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), there are about 1.5 million people who commute to downtown Jakarta from satellite areas every day.
More data has revealed that on average, around 20.7 million trips were made per day across the city in 2008, 15 percent more than the 17.5 million per day in 2004.
The lack of fleets in some modes of public transportation have exacerbated the transportation problem in the capital. Currently, commuter trains in Greater Jakarta and Transjakarta buses can only serve 420,000 and 250,000 passengers each day, respectively.
The city is also trying to ease the severe congestion in the capital by constructing the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system. The first phase of the MRT project is scheduled to open in 2016, and construction is slated to begin in 2013.
When it begins operating, the MRT is expected to have a passenger capacity of 212,000 people per day, which will eventually be increased to 960,000 per day. (cor)