Happy New Year 2012

I have heard stories from a lot of people who went to Bangkok saying that the traffic was brutal. But that was then this is now. Bangkok now has Sky Train and MRT and seems able to reduce a bit of their nightmare traffic jam.

And how about Jakarta my beloved sin city? We did have plan to have monorail but nope... It just stay as a never-going-to-happen-plan. And ever since 2004 Busway started to serve the public...but doesn't seem to get any better. If usually we heard about robbery ending with rape or worst...murder on several not-so-popular taxis now it has expanded to another public transportation called Mikrolet. Sexual harassment, robbery, pickpocket, life-threatening situation... Phew... There are a lot problems for us passengers to deal with.

Merry Christmas buzzers :)

Have a lovely Christmas 2011  :)

[Grumbling edition] Stay the same

Actually, to whom public transportation are there for?

Being called public transportation then surely they are dedicated to serve the public. So, anyone can use public transportation regardless their age, gender, jobs or whatever. Anyone can board the public transportation whether they paid the fare or otherwise (well, have you seen street singers paid the fare?)

Knowing that it will be used for many people, starting from home we have to prepare ourselves to meet all kind of people. With different attitude; inside all public transportation.

Even so, we still get shock or grumbling endlessly whenever we have misfortune to encounter those kind of people...that you find no word to explain them. And they are the least of our problem. It will be another disaster if we bumping into bad guys who not only willing to take our belonging. But they also ready to take our life as well. And not to mention those offender harassing other passsenger sexually.

Do we have to be scare all the time, every moment we step out from our home. Wishing that our journey will be smooth, by means having no traffic jam and meeting those bad people?

Perhaps the sharing straight from the heart of many passengers would only be in the small column and gone on the next day. Buried with another news that sadly have the same content and problem.

Whose fault is that? Not really know because it is too complicated already. I have no idea how to relax inside public transportation. Without feeling worry that I might bumping into another bad person. Trying to look like someone with no money and avoid wearing excessive accesories. Not using my gadget in random places especially inside empty public transportation. Confuse to decide whether I should go with this public transportation or not because there are not many people inside. But if I skip this one, will there be another to take me to my destination? Scratching my head thinking how should I dress up because the problem is not coming from my dress but from the mind of the offender. Can only try to stay calm when the public transportation broke down as this would mean late going to to the office. My Boss surely will kill me for that.

Dealing with passenger also gives that same frustrated and angry feeling. The positive side, I get the idea ...and be thankful to God... Please don't let me turn to this person. The person who aggresively try to find their way among other passengers, don't want to be told even he or she has broke the written rule, always avoiding queuing (pity not all busways heading your way..., so eat that!) , love pushing other passenger by placing their hands on someone's back... Pfff... SUPER ANNOYING!


*Hmmm, pretty much the same year after year,eh?*

Gathering of Mailing List Suara Trans Jakarta

After years joining mailing list Suara Trans Jakarta - they can be reached at suaratransjakarta@yahoogroups.com - last Friday on 09 December 2011 I joined their gathering.

It turn out, this gathering is sort of reunion to most of them. As for me, this is the first time I get to know the faces behind the names that often appears on mailing list activity. There were also two persons from Blu Trans Jakarta. One of them; Pak Akbar gave an explanation about Trans Jakarta. And that was the moment I realized things were not so simple as we would like to think.

Separation

Busway management try to avoid sexual harassment cases by separate women passenger from men. All women passenger are being lead to sit and stand at the front area of the bus. While the men should be at the back area.

Is this an effective way? Well we shall see :)

When I was watching the news, almost all Trans Jakarta user responded positively regarding the separation between male and female passenger. But from what I have read on the mailing list of Trans Jakarta; this way is not effective. Male passengers get cramped on the back of the bus while the front area is still empty because there is only few female passengers.

Phewww, it is hard to set up things to avoid anymore sexual harrasment cases. And more over it's even harder to find solution that could please everybody...

Honestly do we need to have separate buses? You know like special bus for women and special bus for men? So, is that mean more bus stop need to be built? And more trees to be cut off to build new bus stops?

I can only imagine those officials in charge will be the first to get scold or angry remarks by the annoyed passengers regarding this new arrangement.

So how to handle this in the nicest way, Trans Jakarta management?

Stop pushing!

In Indonesia the hardest thing to do is get everyone in order. Queuing to get their hands on free meals up to watch a music concert, most of them end up in catastrophe.

The recent event that just happened when people rushing to buy discounted (50%) new edition of Blackberry. Can't blame it all to the buyers as from what I heard the organizer also screwed things up. I read that only 1000 people could buy the new Blackberry as long as they using credit cards. And one Blackberry for one person. And that announcement drove so many people to line up even from the night before the event. Wow, just as anxious as those people who lining up to buy train tickets during holiday season. What I was wondering, if the organizer already set a limitation on how many buyers that could get the Blackberry then why they keep on receiving more and more people? Why they didn't announce that the quota has been reached and sorry, no more people could come. In reality, people who did not line up could get the blackberry easily instead of those who have been lining since the night before. No wonder people started to get anxious and that's when the chaos began. Those who standing in the back start push and push and things got out of hands.