One of the parking meters sent up on Jalan Sabang in Central Jakarta
Due to poorly designed roads and a lack of parking lots and meters, the vast majority of money that Jakartans spend on parking ends up in the hands of parking preman (thugs) instead of the government.
And though you may only give your local parking preman Rp 2,000 to park (and tell you to turn kiri or kanan as you’re backing out), multiplied by millions of cars parking multiple times per day and you’re talking trillion of rupiah per year.
To be exact, Rp 1.9 trillion. That’s how much the government estimates is being spent on parking per year in Jakarta, of which the government is getting only a slim percentage.
Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama said that in 2014, revenues from 400 government regulated street parking locations in Jakarta totaled only Rp 7.8 billion.
“The potential parking fees in Jakarta could reach Rp 1.9 trillion. That’s if we used all parking meters, so we must use technology,” Ahok told reporters at City Hall yesterday as quoted by Gatra.
Ahok pointed out that the parking meters that were installed early this year on Jalan Sabang in Central Jakarta can rake in as much as Rp 12 million per day. Before there were any parking meters, the average was about Rp 500,000 per day.
The governor says the same thing happened in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, after parking meters were installed there. He said revenue from the recently installed parking meters reach Rp 50 million per day, compared to only Rp 1 million per day previously.
Imagine if all of the parking money that is currently going towards thugs and the parking mafia went to the government, who could then put that money into improving public transportation infrastructure. Hopefully the city will continue its parking meter expansion plans and we’ll get to see someday.
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