Jakarta Promotes Walking by Placing Street Vendors on Sidewalks

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The capital city administration's Cooperatives, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, and Trade Agency announced that it is studying the plan to strategically accommodate street vendors at certain locations of the city’s sidewalks. 

The agency argues that the proposal is meant to present street vendors that would help "fulfill people’s needs."

This plan refers to the Public Works and Public Housing Minister’s Decree No.3/2014 on infrastructure utilization, even though Law No.22/2009 asserts that sidewalks are only specifically made to accommodate pedestrians. 

“The question is if we should not pay attention to people’s needs? Take a walk from Patung Kuda to another place and there are no places selling water, there are also none once we exit the MRT,” said the agency’s head, Adi Ariantara at Jakarta City Hall on Thursday, November 21. 

Adi explained that the distance between modes of transport in Jakarta is 500-meters apart while he said studies found that a pedestrian’s average walk would only cover 175 meters. He believes that accommodating street vendors in certain parts of sidewalks will help attract people’s interest to start walking. 

The agency is still studying the plan from the legal perspective but has completed its technical aspects of placing street vendors across 13 locations on sidewalks in the area of Sudirman - MH Thamrin in downtown Jakarta. 

ANTARA