The Settlements with Road networking in Jakarta
Before the time when Jakarta has been known as it is now, It was called Bativia. During that time, the roads network has already been formed with the roads and rail system centralizing around the port as it was one of the most important economic income now and then. Settlements and planning of the city was all aligned in a linear formation from the port to inland.
After WWII, of the Japanese invasion, The city has been named as Jakarta since then, and settlements began to grow larger in a lateral direction. Major roads has been formed long ago and so only addition of minor roads has been added during the period of 1960s. and since then, the roads formation and system hasn’t changed dramatically but population increased by more than 3 folds during the 1980’s onwards.
Jakarta does not have any public underground transport and now focuses more on development of road networks that are designed for private vehicles. The city cannot support the population of automobiles and have traffic jam everyday.
One may even find themselves taking 1.5hours to move a 3km distance, therefore some will choose to walk than the vehicular option.
Being one of the largest populated city in the world, It has one of the worse road networking which affects a lot within the city.
I think the role of the government would be one of the significant reasons why the road networking system has not been improved much throughout the years. Enforcing a law seems to be a superficial solution, but maybe there’s a more significant reason behind the lack of development of Indonesia in terms of its road networking system. Was there a political reason, for eg: corruption which led to the lack of development?