[Majalah Time menulis] "Jakarta, Kota Terbaik untuk Belajar Sabar"

Jakarta Kota Untuk Belajar Sabar

VIVAnews – Majalah Time pernah menulis, Jakarta adalah kota terbaik untuk belajar sabar. Tulisan yang merujuk pada fenomena kemacetan di Jakarta itu bisa dibaca sebagai sindiran atas kondisi ibukota negara yang tak lagi terkontrol.

Sang wartawan membuat tulisan berdasar pengalamannya sendiri. Ia menguji kesabarannya saat harus menempuh jarak sejauh tiga kilometer dalam waktu enam jam.

Ia terjebak macet akibat genangan yang mengepung sejumlah ruas jalan pascahujan lebat mengguyur Jakarta. Selain uji kesabaran, ia juga mendapat pengalaman unik ketika harus buang air kecil menggunakan botol bekas air mineral di dalam mobil. Bahkan, mobil yang ditumpanginya sempat overheat.

Ia mencitrakan Jakarta sebagai tujuan wisata terbaik bagi jiwa yang ingin melatih kesabaran. Sungguh sebuah pencitraan ibukota negara yang sangat memalukan di mata dunia. Apalagi kita tahu, majalah itu memiliki pembaca setia seantero jagat.

Gambaran itu menunjukkan betapa kenyamanan Jakarta sebagai sebuah kota hilang. Semua terjadi akibat overpopulasi. Arus urbanisasi tak terbendung karena aktivitas pemerintah dan bisnis terpusat di Jakarta. Banjir yang terjadi akibat pembangunan insfrastruktur dan bangunan yang tak terkendali pun memperkusut masalah.

Masih layakkah Jakarta sebagai ibukota negara?

Sumber : http://nasional.vivanews.com/news/read/168089-jakarta–kota-terbaik-belajar-sabar

Tulisan Asli dari Majalah Time :

BEST FOR THE SOUL
A Traffic Jam
By JASON TEDJASUKMANA Thursday, Apr. 23, 2009

Best Place to Learn Patience Jakarta

Kemacetan Jakarta | Time

At one time, Bangkok and Jakarta were jointly famed for having the worst traffic in Asia. But in the past decade, Bangkok got its act together through the construction of underground and elevated rail systems, leaving Jakarta as the capital of gridlock. Anyone who wishes to dispute this need only consult a 2007 study by the Yayasan Pelangi Indonesia, an environmental NGO, which concluded that traffic delays cost Jakarta $3.5 billion a year in lost productivity and extra fuel costs. The number of vehicles on the road in Jakarta doubled in the preceding 10 years while roads only grew 10%. If nothing is done to improve things, the study predicts, traffic will grind to a complete halt by 2014.

Sometimes it feels like it already has. Two years ago, on one horrible afternoon that I will never forget, it took me six hours to drive less than three kilometers when the city was inundated by heavy rains. As I tried to make my way home, my car overheated and I was forced to urinate in an empty water bottle twice. With tempers flaring, and the police looking as paralyzed as the traffic, the military was called in to keep deranged motorists from doing things they would have regretted. (You know things are bad when soldiers are called in to direct traffic.)

But this kind of experience has taught me and many a Jakarta motorist the forbearance normally reserved for desert-dwelling mystics. Indeed, drifting into a transcendental state is the first way to deal with the city’s traffic. The second is to procure a meticulously programmed iPod. My “gridlock” playlist comprises hundreds of songs, from Autolux to Led Zeppelin. And as my spirit climbs that stairway to heaven above the chaos below, I see through to the true heart of things and understand that it does not matter whether traffic moves or does not move. Traffic simply is, now and for all eternity.

Source : http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1893324_1893306_1893303,00.html