City to take fast lane building busway corridors
City to take fast lane building busway corridors
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Jakarta administration will speed up the development of all
15 planned busway corridors so that they are completed by 2007.
"I want to accelerate the development of busway projects so
that residents who live on the outskirts of Jakarta can also
enjoy better public transport services," Governor Sutiyoso said
at City Hall.
Sutiyoso said the administration will now develop four busway
corridors annually instead of the planned two corridors.
"Hopefully, we will be able revise our target of 15 corridors
by 2010 to 2007," he said.
Sutiyoso's second term will end in 2007.
The city budget stands at Rp 14 trillion this year, Rp 600
billion of which has been allocated to build two busway routes
from Pulogadung in East Jakarta to Harmoni in Central Jakarta and
from Harmoni to Kalideres in West Jakarta.
The second busway corridor is expected to be operational in
October this year.
The City Transportation Agency has allocated at least Rp 10
billion to prepare the planning of the infrastructure, traffic
management and civil engineering in the fourth to seventh busway
routes.
It was also provided Rp 3.6 billion in the 2005 budget to
create a system to monitor and control the operation of the
entire busway project.
The administration launched the first busway corridor
stretching from Blok M in South Jakarta to Kota in West Jakarta
in mid-January last year.
The administration has also earmarked Rp 23 billion for the
construction of a pedestrian tunnel in Kota and another Rp 6
billion to upgrade busway infrastructure.
The busway system is one of four public transport systems to
be developed in the city, the others being the Mass Rapid Transit
system (MRT, or subway), the Light Rapid Transit (LRT, or
monorail) system, and river transportation.
The ambitious MRT project, to cost more than US$767 million
and financed through foreign soft loans, is currently being
discussed in the National Development Planning Board.
Meanwhile, the $650 million monorail project is under
construction by a consortium of local and foreign companies. A
part of the monorail project is slated to be finalized by the end
of 2006.