City digging deep for busways

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The ambitious idea of Governor Sutiyoso to provide the city with 12 more busway corridors by 2007, when his term comes to an end, has kept his subordinates busy finding funding sources.

The City Planning Agency is now tasked with reevaluating the cash-strapped budget to collect any penny available to finance the busway's fast-track scheme.

"We are also responsible for finding alternative financing sources," a senior official with the agency, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.

Jakarta Public Works Agency head Fodly Misbach calculated that the project would require between Rp 2.5 trillion and Rp 3 trillion in investment.

"The acceleration of the busway project will only be feasible if private investors are involved. The administration would pay them back later in installments," he said.

Jakarta's 2005 city budget hovers at Rp 14 trillion.

The administration has allocated Rp 600 billion of its budget for establishing two busway corridors, which will connect Pulogadung in East Jakarta with Harmoni in Central Jakarta and Harmoni with Kalideres in West Jakarta. Both corridors are slated to become operational in October.

The administration spent at least Rp 240 billion to build the first busway corridor from Blok M in South Jakarta to Kota in West Jakarta early last year.

A copy of a meeting schedule made available to the Post shows that several city agencies, coordinated by the Jakarta Urban Infrastructure Development Office (ASP), are discussing the acceleration program.

According to the notes, ASP is also assigned to follow up the administration's plan to use compressed natural gas (CNG)-fueled busway buses.

While the officials were trying to make ends meet, Deputy Governor Fauzi Bowo expressed skepticism that the program would be successful, highlighting the absence of a feeder system in the existing busway lines.

"The success of the busway project partly depends on the presence of a feeder system, while there is a tendency on the part of the Jakarta Transportation Agency to give so much attention to building the main trunk and thereby neglecting the establishment of the feeder system," Fauzi, who holds a doctorate in civil engineering from Kaiserlautern University of Germany, told the Post.

"We have to keep in mind that we will only squander our money in a project doomed to failure," he said.

Fauzi added that the administration would find it difficult to prepare the fund for the project as well as to procure buses.