|
Road
travel was the most important form of travel for both
passengers and freight in the early 1990s and was given
the highest priority for government transportation
expenditures. From Repelita I (FY 1969-73) and Repelita II
(FY 1974-78) through Repelita IV (FY 1984-88), about 55
percent of expenditures on transportation infrastructure
was allocated to the extension and maintenance of roads,
while 20 percent went to marine transportation, 15 percent
to railroads, and 10 percent to air and river
transportation (see fig. 9). In 1989 a total of 250,000
kilometers of national, provincial, and district roads
were reported in various states of repair, with 65 percent
reported in good to moderate condition and 43 percent of
the total reported as paved with asphalt. This was an
increase of about 167,000 kilometers from 1967. Of this
total, about 32 percent was classified as highways. Road
density varied greatly throughout the archipelago,
however; in Java there was 0.5 kilometer of road for every
square kilometer in area; comparable values were 0.23 in
Sulawesi, 0.16 in Sumatra, and only 0.04 in Kalimantan.
The numbers of vehicles also increased dramatically--at a
rate of about 14 percent per year from 1967 to 1989. By
1989 there were 8.3 million motor vehicles: 5.7 million
motorcycles, 1.2 million automobiles, 1 million trucks,
and 400,000 buses and smaller public transit vehicles.
Jakarta alone accounted for 37 percent of all automobiles
and 34 percent of all buses but only 18 percent of trucks
and 13 percent of motorcycles. Urban transit became
increasingly dominated by motor vehicles, and in major
cities the policy was to increase the role of public buses
over privately owned, smaller-capacity vehicles such as
the nine-seat microbus or opelet and the six-seat bemo.
The once ubiquitous becak was being replaced by the
motorized bajaj, or three-wheeled passenger motorcycle in
the 1980s. Private automobiles remained largely a
middle-class form of transportation but were still a major
contributor to road congestion, a serious problem in most
major cities. The expansion of major urban roads to reduce
congestion was usually at the expense of pedestrian
traffic. In Jakarta the increased road capacity
contributed to urban sprawl and even greater traffic
congestion as more families moved to surrounding suburbs.
A flatrate fare structure subsidized long bus commutes,
but buses were overcrowded in the 1990s despite the
increases in their numbers. |