Another toll road network planned after JORR

Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Ministry of Settlement and Regional Infrastructure is discussing the construction a new toll road connecting the satellite cities surrounding Jakarta with the relevant regency and municipal governments before deciding on the expressway's precise path.

The director of the Toll Road Division at the ministry's Directorate General of Regional Infrastructure, Rachmat Effendi, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that the plan had actually been mooted before the financial crisis hit the country in late 1997.

"The idea is to connect Jakarta with other cities and towns in the Greater Jakarta area, such as Cileungsi, Depok, Parung, Tangerang and Serpong.

"Now that regional autonomy has been implemented, many local administrations have asked us to build highway networks in their jurisdictions," he said.

"We will try to accommodate such requests but will be guided by whether the proposed toll roads are to connected to the existing network," he said.

Dubbed the second Jakarta Outer Ring Road (JORR), the planned highway would connect West Java's Cikarang with Cileungsi, Depok, Parung and Serpong before terminating in Tangerang, Banten province, which lies to the west of Jakarta.

The plan also provides for a 50-kilometer section connecting Cikarang with Tanjung Priok in North Jakarta. The total length is expected to be more than 150 kilometers.

The first JORR project is currently under construction, although several sections have been completed and are now operational. The JORR project is expected to be fully completed in 2006.

The cost of the planned new turnpike is expected to be not less than Rp 3 trillion, excluding land acquisition costs.

Each kilometer of the toll road is expected to cost between Rp 23 billion and Rp 27 billion depending on the geological and soil conditions.

Rachmat, however, admitted that the ministry had yet to decide on the new toll road's path.

"My office had previously conducted preliminary studies but the local administrations requested revisions to the plans here and there."

Meanwhile, one of the Toll Road Division's planners, Bambang Eko Hargiyanto, said the construction of the new toll road would have to wait until the Jakarta Outer Ring Road (JORR) toll road project was completed.

"It would be useless if we built both projects at the same time as the building of both of them would be inefficient. There won't be enough traffic for both projects.

"We need at least 20,000 vehicles each day to reach the minimum feasibility level," he told the Post.

But Bambang said that in general road traffic in Indonesia was growing steadily.