The Cycling Community Complains To The DPRD, Bike Paths In Jakarta Have No Longer Been Payed Attention To Since The Heru Budi Era

Illustration of bicycle lanes in DKI Jakarta (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Member of Commission B of the DKI Jakarta DPRD Muhammad Taufik Zoelkifli admitted that he had complaints from the Bike to Work (B2W) cyclist community regarding bicycle lanes in Jakarta at this time.

Taufik said, B2W complained about the lack of attention to bicycle lane maintenance since the era of Heru Budi Hartono's leadership as Acting Governor of DKI Jakarta who replaced Anies Baswedan.

"It's a pity that Bike to Work's friends have confided in me. Talking about the attention to the bicycle lane is now gone, it's not there since the leadership's attention," Taufik said when contacted, Monday, June 26.

In fact, according to Taufik, Heru also needs to maintain the sustainability of bicycle facilities as environmentally friendly transportation. Moreover, the poor air quality in the capital city is of public concern.

"This requires comprehensive handling. Because if many people ride bicycles or marginalize private vehicles, that's one way to reduce air pollution. Remember, 80 percent of Jakarta's air pollution from fossil fuel vehicles," he said.

In fact, the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government has allocated a budget for bicycle lanes of IDR 7.5 billion in the 2023 budget year APBD.

In detail, the budget of Rp. 2 billion is allocated to evaluate or study existing bicycle lanes, Rp. 500 million for the socialization of bicycle lanes in each administrative city, and Rp. 5 billion for the optimization of existing bicycle lanes.

In an evaluation program with a budget of IDR 2 billion, the DKI Jakarta Transportation Agency will later conduct a study on the conditions for the use of bicycle lanes on existing roads.

Meanwhile, optimizing bicycle lanes with a budget of IDR 5 billion will be used for repairs to the transfer of bicycle lanes which are considered less than optimal.

However, the member of the PKS faction of the DKI DPRD said that until now the DKI Jakarta Transportation Agency has not reported the progress of evaluating the bicycle lanes that have been built since the Anies Baswedan era as the Governor of DKI.

"It turns out that it has not been implemented until now. The budget should have been disbursed. That's why later I will ask the Transportation Agency. In the latest news, he said it would have been implemented. Moreover, this is ahead of the ASEAN Summit, September. It should have been neat, that's it. It's a shame, if not," he explained.

Therefore, Taufik said that Commission B of the DKI DPRD would summon the ranks of the Transportation Service to ask for an explanation regarding the results of the evaluation of bicycle lanes in a working meeting in the future.