City to keep to minimum toll road entry, exit gates
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
To prevent even worse traffic chaos along the trajectories of a number of planned new inner-city toll roads, the Jakarta administration says it intends to keep the number of entry and exit points to the roads to a minimum.
"The idea of expressways is that they should be free of obstructions from point A to point B. That's why we have to reduce the number of entry and exit points. This is based on our experience with existing toll roads, where long lines of vehicles at the gates are common," Jakarta Deputy Governor Fauzi Bowo said over the weekend.
He added that the expressway projects would also involve the construction of alternative roads for public transportation and those who did not want to pay tolls.
Meanwhile, Hari Sandjojo, the development affairs assistant to the city secretary, said that the administration would prioritize the construction of toll roads from Bekasi to Kampung Melayu in East Jakarta and from Kampung Melayu to Kemayoran in Central Jakarta early next year.
The 14.36-kilometer Bekasi-Kampung Melayu route will cost Rp 3.6 trillion, while the nine-kilometer expressway from Kampung Melayu to Kemayoran will cost Rp 2.7 trillion.
"PT Jakarta Propertindo is preparing a feasibility study for the projects to see whether they are in line with the city's master plan on transportation, and whether they make economic sense," he added.
PT Jakarta Propertindo, which first suggested the projects, has been appointed as the main developer. It is expected that the new roads will be mostly elevated.
The administration said that it was confident the projects would be attractive to investors as they promised an internal rate of return (IRR) of 17.5 percent per annum.
Currently, interest on bank loans for infrastructure projects ranges between 12 percent and 17 percent.
According to Hari, the administration was now awaiting a response from the central government to the request it had made to be permitted to build and manage the toll roads as under the legislation as it stands at the moment, the authority to develop toll roads is vested in the Ministry of Public Works.
The developer's president director, IGKG Suena, told The Jakarta Post that his company would start construction work in March next year if all the necessary approvals were obtained.
A total of six new expressways are envisaged at a cost of Rp 23 trillion, or Rp 270 billion per kilometer, and they will be constructed in seven stages. It is hoped that all the projects will be completed by 2009.
The administration has said that traffic in the capital would end up in complete gridlock by 2014 should steps not be taken immediately to solve the problem.
Governor Sutiyoso has blamed an average annual 8 percent growth in new cars as the cause of the worsening traffic chaos.
However, his administration has done little to date to curb the rapid increase in vehicle ownership.
Meanwhile, the police have suggested the imposing of a ban on older vehicles in the city.
Currently, Jakarta's roads, which extend to 7,634 kilometers in length, must accommodate 6.4 million vehicles. This figure does not include out-of-town vehicles entering the capital. Experts says the city's roads are only capable of accommodating 3.5 million vehicles.