YOGYAKARTA – Traffic jam in urban areas of Yogyakarta is becoming worse. Of all main roads in the city of Yogyakarta, the daily rate of traffic jam is 7 percent. It is predicted that by year 2023, the traffic will increase up to 45%. “A serious measure needs to be taken, in ten years traffic will occur in almost half of the main roads,” transportation observer of UGM, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ahmad Munawar, M.Sc., on Wednesday (6/3).
The professor in Civil Engineering explained that new road construction is hard to do. Instead, flyover or other facilities will just trigger the growth of private cars that will only increase the traffic. “The addition of road length and flyover in urban areas will speed up the growth of private cars, and traffic will increase,” he said.
The solution to resolve traffic in Yogyakarta is the improvement of public transport. In general, he saw that most public transport here is very poor. The Trans Jogja that had been expected to be the solution to public transport has not developed as expected. “The number of units has remained the same, not increasing,” he explained.
Other public transports is also poor in addition to the fewer passengers and the longer times the vehicles wait to get passengers and the numerous accidents. To resolve traffic, Munawar said that support in terms of regulation and finance from the provincial government.
He also proposed integrated public transport that meets minimal service standard throughout the province. His survey showed that as high as 81% vehicles are private ones with motorcycles being the highest at 74 percent. “Buses only reach 10 percent,” he said.
Separately, Sukamta, member of local parliament, shared this view that government intervention is required. Three main problems to be resolved soon is urban and rural management system. “Unfortunately, rural transportation is often ignored due to economic mobility reason, while subsidy allocation of urban public transport is swelling because many lines have few passengers,” he said.
Second, management problems. Third, urging the public to change from private vehicles to public ones. “Overseas, there is parking regulation such as the high cost of parking private vehicles and the ban on parking on the roads, so people are reluctant to use their private vehicles,” he concluded.