Angkot Stops Carelessly And Lots Of Illegal Parking, Traffic Jams At Tanah Abang Market Like 'No Medicine'

No officers. Severe congestion headed for Tanah Abang Market, from the direction of KS Tubun/ Photo: Bitor Ekin Putra

Approaching the holy month of Ramadan which is predicted to fall on Thursday, March 23, tomorrow, the Tanah Abang Market area will be crowded with visitors. The arrival of visitors is none other than to shop for various needs of Ramadan such as dates, sarongs, mukena, prayer mats to Muslim clothing.

However, the density of visitors to Tanah Abang Market, both using public transportation modes and private vehicles, is not balanced with the existing parking lot. So that the area is getting denser and the irregular traffic flow causes a node of severe congestion.

Congestion began to occur on Jalan Kebon Jati from Jalan KS Tubun towards Fachrudin Street. This congestion is due to the large number of public and online transportation that lowers passengers not on the right place (stop).

The impact of traffic jams along Jalan Kebon Jati also resulted in delays in traffic flow towards Jalan Jembatan Tinggi, starting from the T-junction opposite Blok F Tanah Abang Market. At this T-junction, public transportation is also rampant, which stops at any place to look for passengers.

The impact of the random parking public transportation caused a long traffic jam to Jalan Jati Baru Raya, near JPM Tanah Abang Station. In fact, the aftermath of the traffic jam spreads to the bottom of the Jati Baru Flyover towards Tanah Abang Market.

In addition, at other points such as in front of Block A, Blok B and Metro Tanah Abang Market also often traffic jams on Jalan KH Mas Mansyur and Jalan Fachrudin. Congestion on Jalan KH Mas Mansyur occurs from the direction of the Karet Bivak TPU to the Jati Baru Flyover. Likewise, the opposite direction is on Fachrudin Street, which is located opposite to Jalan KH Mas Mansyur.

This congestion is mostly caused by the large number of public transportation and online transportation that carry out activities of taking passengers carelessly.

Although there is a monitoring post belonging to the Transportation Service, there are no Central Jakarta Transportation Sub-dept. officers who have dispersed congestion and arranged public transportation at the location. There are no officers from the Central Jakarta Transportation Sub-dept. who have diverted traffic flow or engineering around the Tanah Abang Market area.

This phenomenon occurs almost every day. Until now, the government has not found a special formula to deal with congestion problems that continue to occur in the largest textile center in Southeast Asia.

Transportation observer Azas Tigor Nainggolan said that the traffic conditions and congestion in the Tanah Abang Market area are currently very severe.

"Congestion is caused by the large number of vehicles parked arbitrarily on roads and public transportation that are careless," said Azas Tigor to VOI, Wednesday, March 22.

Azas asked the DKI Jakarta Transportation Agency to be consistent in taking action in the Tanah Abang Market area. Thus, the congestion conditions around Tanah Abang Market do not continue to drag on every year.

"There needs to be firmness and consistency of the Transportation Agency in taking action against road users who park carelessly and adjust as they wish," he said.

The improvement of the traffic situation in the Tanah Abang Market area must be addressed as soon as possible. The reason is, the lack of parking spaces and the number of visitors are often used by certain groups to reap profits illegally, such as the proliferation of illegal vehicle parking and public transportation systems which are also often extorted.

"This condition, if left unchecked, will cause social problems, then such as thuggery and extortion of road users," he explained.