Trapped At Home By Traffic

As I wrote earlier, Jakarta recently extended an "even-odd" traffic policy to additional major roads in the city. This policy requires a private car traveling on affected roads during nine peak hours of the day to have an even-numbered license plate on even-numbered weekdays of the month or an odd-numbered license plate on odd-numbered weekdays of the month.

One of the major roads impacted by the policy extension happens to be the only way to or from our house. We live on a dead-end street. A private car must use the major the road, at least for a block, to come or go from that dead-end street.

I assumed there would be a reasonable policy exception where local residents could briefly use the major road for the unavoidable one-block transit to a secondary road. Nope. Apparently, we are expected to not come or go from our home in a car during nine peak hours every other weekday. That seems a bit unreasonable, no?

To be clear, I think something needs to be done about traffic in Jakarta. That something is probably congestion pricing that funds more transportation options. Even if that something is "even-odd," the policy shouldn't penalize people just because they happen to live on a dead-end street.

Never fear, though! We have found a solution to this problem. There is a private property on our dead-end road that also connects to another secondary road. The owner is now charging everyone on our road for the priviledge of crossing his property during our affected "even-odd" times. Capitalism at its finest!

Main blog post image by Jordan Rowland.