All news is good news.
Jakarta to embrace 12 million vehicles by 2011
Jakarta Police have predicted that about 12 million motor vehicles will burden the capital’s roads by 2011.
“The number of vehicles on Jakarta’s streets tends to increase every year,” the police’s Traffic Management Center coordinator Comr. Indra Jafar told Antara state news agency Monday.
The 12 million vehicle estimate did not include public transportation vehicles, which had reached almost 860,000 units so far, he added.
Indra said the number of motor vehicles had reached 11.3 million, of which 8.2 million are motorcycles.
The capital has a total of 7,650 meters of road with a 0.01 percent annual growth rate, while the motor vehicle growth rate is 0.26 percent per year.
With such a margin, Indra said he was concerned traffic jams would be much worse in the future.
“The number of vehicles on Jakarta’s streets tends to increase every year,” the police’s Traffic Management Center coordinator Comr. Indra Jafar told Antara state news agency Monday.
The 12 million vehicle estimate did not include public transportation vehicles, which had reached almost 860,000 units so far, he added.
Indra said the number of motor vehicles had reached 11.3 million, of which 8.2 million are motorcycles.
The capital has a total of 7,650 meters of road with a 0.01 percent annual growth rate, while the motor vehicle growth rate is 0.26 percent per year.
With such a margin, Indra said he was concerned traffic jams would be much worse in the future.
Lets makes some assumptions:
The 2010 census recorded a population for Jakarta of 9,580,000 people. Which means we all have or a bike.
There are a staggering 860,000 public transportations vehicles in Jakarta or 1 bus for every 9 people so why are all the buses full when everyone has a car or bike and no one likes public transport?
Traffic cant be much worse, the average speed in the city is apparently 8.3km or 5.2mph yet there are serious accidents all the time. Last week I saw a 40ft container truck on its side on the other side of a 1 meter high concrete wall where it had managed to crash. I was told after that it had no brakes and rather crash, it jumped over a wall. The dent in the safety fence is still there and there is still broken glass on the road, despite the rain.
Jakarta sinks as soil degrades, sea surface escalates
In addition to traffic woes, Jakarta is under threat of soil degradation and rising sea surface levels, experts say.
Geology research conducted at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) revealed that the soil surface in 23 areas in Jakarta had sunk by between two and 12 centimeters per year during the 1997-2007 period.
The soil in the western and northern areas of Jakarta had sunk by between five and 12 centimeters per year, researcher Hasanuddin Z. Abidin said.
“Soil in Jakarta’s central and eastern areas was sinking at an average annual rate of five centimeters, while some of Jakarta’s southern areas were dropping by between two and four centimeters per year,” he added, as quoted by kompas.com.
Another researcher, Safwan Hadi, calculated that with given a one centimeter escalation of the sea surface each year, Penjaringan, Pademangan, Ancol, Pluit and Kamal Muara districts will be inundated with sea water by 2050.
12 centimeters a year? This apparently is to do with ground water being pumped out, concrete being pumped in and the bad state of everything in Jakarta. Saying that though, not such a bad thing Pluit being under water.
My apartment has a sinking tax. Someone I know who understands these things said the following things to me. Everything sinks but thats ok if it is all at once and Apartments here are designed with earthquakes in mind. Leave that statement open.
The upside is Harvey Nicols is closing down as it never really worked here, Paris Hilton has a shop here selling handbags, ( I am sure I could make it sound better but I wont) although she never opened it as the Japanese would not let her into Japan under concerns for drugs, so she turned around and headed back to the USA resulting in her cancelling her aisan tours. Indonesia is also building the tallest electricity pylons in the world, it has a breed of toad that will help the cocoa farmers in Sulawesi with pests and it is one of the biggest 'tweeting' countries in the world.
A little bit late as normal but this has to be like painting the forth bridge
City to clear drainage systems next month
JAKARTA: The Public Works Agency will start the tender process for contractors to clean the city’s drainage systems next month in anticipation of the rainy season.
“Some works will be conducted by the winner of the bidding process as scheduled, while we are doing some ad-hoc work,” Governor Fauzi Bowo said on Monday.
He said the agency should also tackle drains that need urgent work.
“For example, when the Jl. Rasuna Said-Jl. Gatot Subroto intersection is inundated, I ordered the agency to immediately handle it as such a case cannot await a tender process,” he said.
The agency, he said, also regularly cleared blocked drainage systems that often flooded after rain, including the one on Jl. Sabang in Central Jakarta. — JP
“Some works will be conducted by the winner of the bidding process as scheduled, while we are doing some ad-hoc work,” Governor Fauzi Bowo said on Monday.
He said the agency should also tackle drains that need urgent work.
“For example, when the Jl. Rasuna Said-Jl. Gatot Subroto intersection is inundated, I ordered the agency to immediately handle it as such a case cannot await a tender process,” he said.
The agency, he said, also regularly cleared blocked drainage systems that often flooded after rain, including the one on Jl. Sabang in Central Jakarta. — JP
Other stories we wished we had missed
The porn saga rumbles on as the minister for information or something wants to stop porn on the internet and he is asking people to report others that view it online. You should know that there are huge markets and shops that sell DVDs of every type of sexual act possible (so I am told) and there is absolutely nothing being done about that or stopping the DVD piracy trade.
The minister in charge admits to viewing porn to check if it is still there... Classic
The female only carriages on trains are being filled up by men. No comment
The concerning stories of religious violence and mistrust continues around west Java with no real clear resolution and the strange case of the American blasphemy in Lombok.
Lots of people from the government are on fact finding trips to europe and someone else high up in the government acknowledged that they will be mainly sightseeing and shopping...
Oh stories like this could go on for hours....
Ah finally I have been thinking, I have a lot of time to do that while dodging buses and other motorbikes so bear with me and if it makes no sense, never mind.
Lets assume our average life expectancy is 96 years. Lets put that on a clock with 48 years being midday and 24 years being 6am etc. I am almost 10 to 10 in the morning. In English eating fashions, either brunch or an early elevenes....
More to come soon.........
Remember,
Even a clock that does not work is right twice a day
