'Busway to worsen the traffic jam'

Ahmad Junaidi and Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The controversial busway project will likely again be delayed due to poor planning, while a senior police officer predicted on Tuesday the Rp 90 billion project would worsen traffic congestion in the city.

The chief of the police's Traffic Division, Sr. Comr. Sulistyo Ishak, said the project, which is to span 15 kilometers from Blok M area in South Jakarta to Kota in West Jakarta, would worsen traffic along the city's arteries.

"It's undeniable that the implementation (of the project) would result in further traffic congestion," Sulistyo told The Jakarta Post.

However, he said the police were prepared to regulate traffic if the administration chose to proceed with the busway project.

"Preparations (for the busway project) are still underway, including providing information to the public," Sulistyo said, without mentioning details of the preparations or the time frame for the project's implementation.

The project, which was designed by transportation experts from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, originally was to be implemented in December but was postponed for eight months due to a lack of social and financial preparation.

The city administration originally allocated Rp 50 billion for the project, later increasing this amount to approximately Rp 90 billion.

Undeterred by public criticism, the city administration announced earlier this month that two buses would ply the busway route on a trial basis.

However, City Transportation Agency chief Rustam Effendy said on Tuesday the trial could not begin this week because the two buses were still being assembled in Magelang, Central Java, and Sukabumi, West Java, respectively.

"The buses should arrive here by the end of this month, so the trial was unable to begin (on time)," Rustam said at City Hall, while declining to give a firm date for the beginning of the project.

The two buses, one of which is a German-made Mercedes and one a Japanese-made Hino, must be modified to move their doors to the right side.

The buses will run in the fast lane of roads and pick up and drop off passengers at bus shelters currently being built in the median of the roads.

Several construction workers were seen on Tuesday building bus shelters along the median of Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat in Central Jakarta.

Dozens of shelters will be built along the route, including along the city's main thoroughfares Jl. M.H. Thamrin and Jl. Sudirman.

Workers also are painting parts of the road along the route red and installing signs to mark the busway route.

Some critics fear the environmental impact of the project, with trees having to be cut, particularly along Jl. Sudirman in Central Jakarta, to make way for the construction of the bus shelters.