Give busway a chance, the problem is the officials

Endy M. Bayuni, Deputy Editor, The Jakarta Post Cambridge, Massachusetts

Imagine a Jakarta that is far less polluted, far less congested and with far less fatal traffic accidents than today. We probably would have to go back 30 or even 40 years to find a Jakarta that fits that description. Even in the 1970s, Jakarta was already a chaotic city, with traffic that was clogged by the thousands of becak (the three-wheeled pedicabs in case you forget) and unruly motorists.

A utopian dream? Not necessarily. If we give the Jakarta Busway a chance, which very few people in the city seem prepared to do as the Jan. 15 launch date gets closer, it may well improve things.

If the busway can be as successful as Bogota, Colombia's TransMilenio, then Jakarta could actually become a much more livable place than it is today. Admittedly, this is a big IF. But then, is that not all the more reason that we should give it a chance?

TransMilenio, began operating in the Colombian capital in December 2000, and has transformed Bogota and the lives of its six million to seven million people for the better, and we are not just talking about a more efficient means of public transportation.

Just take a look at these statistics published by TransMilenio:

o A decline by 93 percent in fatal traffic accidents, and by 50 percent in injury-causing accidents.

o A 40 percent drop in some air pollutants and a 30 percent reduction in noise level in areas where TransMilenio operates.

o A 32 percent decline in travel time for users. An average user gains some 300 hours (saved from traveling time) a year.

o A 10 percent drop in gasoline consumption.

o A nearly 50 percent decline in thefts (pickpockets) in the public transportation system.

Most of these benefits came as early as the first five months after its launch.

Even professionals who were among the skeptics were won over quickly, says Mauricio Lloreda, an op-ed columnist for El Tiempo magazine of Bogota. "Attorneys found that going to the courts using TransMilenio would only take them 10 minutes compared to 30-45 minutes by car, plus parking time and associated costs."

More time in your hand, safer to travel around, easier to breathe and greater fuel efficiency. Now, who would not want that for Jakarta?

Sadly, these achievements have rarely been invoked by the proponents of the busway even as they struggle to secure public support.

Yet, they keep citing TransMilenio as the source of their inspiration. Governor Sutiyoso and his team traveled to Bogota to see it first hand, and experts from Bogota were flown to Jakarta to help draft the concept locally. Did our officials not learn about these wonderful results, or have they simply neglected or forgotten to tell the public?

Many cast doubts about the feasibility of the bus rapid transit (BRT) system on the grounds that Jakarta is not Bogota, and that Sutiyoso is no Enrique Penalosa, the mayor who introduced the TransMilenio to Bogota three years ago.

The part about different qualities in leadership may be true, but there are enough similarities between Jakarta and Bogota that the busway might just work. Bogota is a city of seven million, and Jakarta is, at least officially, about nine million people.

And who says that Bogota three years ago was a pleasant city? Penalosa, who served between 1998 and 2001, called it a "basket case" when he took over the helm.

"People thought it was a punishment of God to live in Bogota," he was quoted as saying by Harvard University Gazette during a talk he gave here in Cambridge in April.

Bogota, he said, was beset by problems of drug, crime, corruption, traffic congestion, pollution and a crumbling infrastructure. He could easily be describing Jakarta of today.

We all know that Jakarta desperately needs a public transportation system that is efficient and, no less importantly, inexpensive to build.

A mass rapid transit (MRT) system, either a subway like Singapore's, or a skyway like Bangkok's, is not a real feasible option at the moment, because it is way beyond what Jakarta can afford today or in the foreseeable future. And either option will take much longer time to build, and by that time Jakarta's traffic system would probably collapse completely before it ever saw the light of day.

TransMilenio, which runs along a 40-kilometer stretch of roads in Bogota, today carries some 800,000 passengers daily. Private contractors operate the 470 buses that ply the three corridors at an average speed of 26 km per hour. Passengers pay the equivalent of 36 U.S. cents per trip.

The TransMilenio stations have become emblematic of the "New City of Bogota", according to columnist Lloreda. "They are well organized and they promote more civic behavior, and almost every one has joined in."

Now under Mayor Antanas Mockus, Bogota is starting to implement a 15-year program to expand TransMilenio into 22 corridors covering more than 300 kilometers. And he has secured the budget for the expansion project.

Ultimately, the success of TransMilenio was not so much due to the system but to the leadership of mayors Penalosa and Mockus, and the personal prestige they lent to the project. There was no doubt, however, that Penalosa was the driving force behind TransMilenio, and thus, the transformation of Bogota and of its citizens.

This is a mayor who faced an impeachment as soon as he assumed office in 1998 because he banned cars from parking on sidewalks. This is a mayor who restricted the use of private cars by converting many roads into pedestrian-only paths and creating special paths for bicycles, and then the special lanes for the TransMilenio buses. He introduced a no-car day in Bogota that forced everyone to leave their cars behind, and either walk or take a bicycle to work.

And this is a mayor who had residents, particularly children, in mind when he set about his work. "We cannot talk about urban transport until we know what kind of city we want. If we want a city for people and particularly children, road infrastructure must be limited and car use restricted," he said during his campaign to sell his idea.

This is a mayor who knew what he had to do, and did it with conviction.

Going by his record, Mayor Penalosa did a lot more in his three-year tenure than Governor Sutiyoso could ever hope to in the 10 years (or more?) he will be in office.

The success or failure of Jakarta's busway project would, in all likelihood, depend on the leadership it has. Going by the widespread negative reaction so far from the public, who are the ultimate users and beneficiaries of the system, the outlook for Sutiyoso, and unfortunately for the project itself, is grim.

The writer is currently studying at Harvard University under the Nieman Fellowship program.