DKI Will Widen Sidewalks In Kebayoran Baru, DPRD: Getting More Traffic!

Jakarta sidewalks / VOI

JAKARTA - The DKI Provincial Government will work on arranging sidewalks in five areas of the Kebayoran Baru Area, South Jakarta. The 4.6-kilometer-long sidewalk will be widened.

"The plan is for sidewalks, starting in May 2021. The width will be three to four meters", Head of DKI Jakarta Highways Agency Hari Nugroho told VOI, Tuesday, March 2.

The sidewalk widening is on Jalan Senopati, Jalan Suryo, Jalan Wolter Monginsidi, Jalan Trunojoyo, and Jalan Gunawarman. Work will be completed in December 2021.

Hari said the reason for the arrangement of sidewalks in the Kebayoran Baru area is because the area is a destination for residence, businesses, shopping centers, and tourism with the potential for developing culinary tourism.

This, said Hari, needs to be supported by other public facilities without losing its identity as a cultural heritage area and transit-oriented development (TOD).

Then, there is additional support for pedestrian accessibility and convenience to various access modes of transportation such as MRT, BRT, and non-BRT buses in the area.

"The concept of complete street arrangement is the rearrangement of road space according to its function to accommodate all the needs of road users according to the right portion by prioritizing pedestrians, cyclists, and public transportation users", said Hari.

Unfortunately, the sidewalk widening plan was criticized by the DPRD. Gilbert Simanjuntak, a member of the PDIP faction at the DPRD of DKI, thinks that widening the sidewalks will make traffic conditions even more congested.

"There are sidewalks that want to be widened, automatically the lanes for cars and motorbikes will be reduced. If the sidewalks are widened, it will certainly be more congested and increase pollution", said Gilbert to VOI.

Therefore, Gilbert asked Anies Baswedan to improve the public transportation system first. After that, only the sidewalks were arranged.

"Public transportation now has not reached all of them. Jaklingko is also still minimal. People will move to public transportation if the facilities are more comfortable. If it is not comfortable, people will rebel at any time", said Gilbert.

"We recommend that mass transportation be increased first by increasing the number of fleets, frequency, timeliness, and number of lanes to reach all areas in Jakarta", he continued.