The title:
Traffic In Indonesia's Capital
Two of the most resilient features of life in Jakarta are the mini-protest and the macro-jam. Almost every day some group or other takes their grievance to the city's main landmark, the Bundaran HI traffic circle. However small the protesters' number, they end up bringing traffic to a halt all around the city's main thoroughfare.
Traffic In Indonesia's Capital
Two of the most resilient features of life in Jakarta are the mini-protest and the macro-jam. Almost every day some group or other takes their grievance to the city's main landmark, the Bundaran HI traffic circle. However small the protesters' number, they end up bringing traffic to a halt all around the city's main thoroughfare.
The daily jams are not going to ease in the near future. Indeed, by most official estimates, they are likely to worsen, until sometime in 2014, when Jakarta will attain total traffic gridlock. Vehicles will take up every single inch of available space on roads and highways, leaving the city like a scene from a dystopian fantasy.
There are currently around 1.5m motorised vehicles—cars, motorcycles, buses and three-wheeled auto-rickshaws—on Jakarta's streets each day, though the roads have space for only 1m of them. Streets account for only 6.2% of the city's land mass, compared with 15-20% in New York, Tokyo or Singapore. The present growth rate of Jakarta's roads is 0.9% a year, while vehicle growth is 9%; demand is driving circles around supply.
Jakarta is estimated to lose $1 billion a year due to traffic,