Experts say busway project has failed
Experts say busway project has failed
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
After a full month of the busway's operation, some transportation
experts said the project was a failure because of poor planning
and unfocused implementation.
An urban transportation expert at the University of Indonesia,
Jack Sumabrata, said on Sunday he doubted the busway would be
successful because the city administration did not have a well
thought out plan or a clear direction for implementing the
project.
"Any policies relating to the busway project seem to have no
objective, no direction," he told The Jakarta Post by phone on
Sunday.
He opposed the administration's plan to add a new fast lane
for private cars by scrapping parts of the median strips on Jl.
Sudirman and Jl. Thamrin.
"This idea contradicts the original purpose of the busway,
which was to encourage Jakartans to switch from private cars to
public transportation. It's definitely the wrong move to
compromise with the increasingly critical private car owners,"
Jack said.
He said adding a new fast lane, which will be carried out this
year by the city public works and the city parks agencies, would
encourage private cars owners to continue using their vehicles.
Instead of constructing a new fast lane for private cars, at a
cost of Rp 15 billion (US$1.78 million), Jack suggested the
administration use the funds to improve the existing busway
infrastructure and feeder bus routes.
Having tried the busway several times, he pointed to damage to
the exclusive busway lane. He said the damage resulted because
the lane had not been specially designed to handle buses.
Azas Tigor Nainggolan of the Coalition of Residents for
Transportation said the busway would fail because of a lack of
supporting infrastructure and facilities, including feeder buses
and wider sidewalks for pedestrians.
"If the project fails then the people's money will have been
squandered. Remember, all the operational costs, even the
construction of the infrastructure for the busway, are financed
by the city budget," he said.
The administration spent Rp 120.7 billion last year procuring
56 buses and building lane dividers, bus shelters and pedestrian
overpasses for the busway. This year, the administration has
allocated Rp 120 billion to purchase another 44 buses, build
canopies for the pedestrian bridges and construct an underpass in
Kota.
Fatimah Sari Nasution of the Institute for Transportation and
Development Policy warned that the busway would hit serious snags
if the administration failed to build passing lanes for the
busway.
"Passing lanes at every busway shelter are important to
prevent traffic jams along the busway corridor," she was quoted
as saying by Antara.
She warned that the busway corridor could become congested
when all 140 of the planned buses were fully operational,
pointing to the already common sight of long lines of buses in
the corridor even though only 56 of the buses are currently in
operation.
Governor Sutiyoso has rejected a plan by the TransJakarta
Busway Management to construct passing lanes at all busway
shelters.