Busway project glosses over land woes

Busway project glosses over land woes

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The city administration is sticking to its plan to simultaneously
build new busway corridors from the Pulo Gebang bus terminal,
currently under-construction in East Jakarta, to Kalideres, West
Jakarta, even though land acquisition remains a problem.

"We have to go on with the construction work while
negotiations continue regarding the aquasition of plots of land
on Jl. Perintis Kemerdekaan," City Public Works Agency head Fodly
Misbach said.

The administration plans to acquire around 42,000 square
meters of land on the north side of Jl. Perintis Kemerdekaan from
Mediros Hospital to the Pulogadung bus terminal. The land is
needed to widen the street to 50 meters from the existing average
of 22 meters. The 50-meter wide road is needed to give room for
the busway lane, busway shelters and lanes for other vehicles.

The administration has proposed allocating Rp 90 billion
(US$10 million) in funds in its 2005 budget to compensate land
owners. The compensation being offered is between Rp 1 million
and Rp 1.5 million per square meter.

The busway corridor construction will be handled by several
different agencies, namely the public works agency for road
infrastructure, transportation agency for the construction of
busway shelters and the parks agency to relocate trees in the
median strips.

"The procurement of the buses will be in the hands of those
private companies that have expressed interest in taking part in
the operation of the new busway project," said City Secretary
Ritola Tasmaya.

The private companies, he said, were bus operators whose
routes were scrapped due to the busway operation. They are Steady
Safe, Mayasari Bhakti, Arief Rahman Hakim (ARH) and state-run bus
operator PPD, whose 200 buses together ply the routes to be taken
over by the busway.

"I have received information from the transportation agency
that the operators have agreed to take part in the project,
considering that the new busway project is prospective for their
business," Ritola said.

"We have finished the planning stage. We are now proceeding
with the busway implementation. Hopefully, the new project will
be on schedule."

The Pulo Gebang-Kalideres route will be divided into two,
passing the National Monument (Monas). The first route, Pulo
Gebang-Monas, will be operational in June while the other will
start in October.

The Jakarta Post observed that the administration started lane
divider construction for the Pulo Gebang-Monas corridor in early
November. It cut down dozens of trees in the median strips on Jl.
Perintis Kemerdekaan and Jl. Suprapto.

Parks Agency data says that there are at least 1,610 trees
along Jl. Perintis Kemerdekaan while Jl. Suprapto has 564 trees.
However, there is no information available on the number of trees
that will be cut down to make way for the project.

The Parks Agency has promised to replace each tree cut down
with 10 new trees.

As for the Monas-Kalideres route, so far there has been no
construction work.

An official with the West Jakarta Transportation Office,
Theodorus Marbun, said the busway lane divider construction would
also affect at least seven kilometers of median strip on Jl. Daan
Mogot.

"We will cut both sides of the median strip by 3.4 meters to
make way for the busway lanes," he said.