Residents worried new busway will aggravate traffic woes
Residents worried new busway will aggravate traffic woes
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The city administration's poor education campaign over its
controversial busway scheme has made many Jakartans confused and
worried about worsening traffic jams, despite the fact the new
system is designed to ease traffic woes.
Yunita, 30, who works for a foreign bank on Jl. Imam Bonjol,
Central Jakarta, could not imagine the delays she would
experience driving to work from her home in Ciputat, South
Jakarta, as the project would use one of the three lanes of the
city's main roads.
"I don't agree with the plan ... The project won't work well,
I assure you, it will result in more chaos," Yunita told The
Jakarta Post on Friday.
Yunita usually needs about an hour and a half to reach work,
but with heavy traffic congestion it can take more than two and a
half hours.
She doubted the busway system would be effective.
She struggled to imagine the results of the system, as
motorists would have to stop every few minutes to allow bus users
to cross the road to catch the bus from the median strips.
This will also be dangerous for the passengers especially
because motorists here are notorious for its reckless way of
driving and most of them just ignore zebra crossings.
The new Rp 90.5 billion system will use 60 air-conditioned
buses, each with 54 seats. The buses will ply the 12.9-kilometer
route from Blok M, South Jakarta to Kota, West Jakarta at
intervals of five minutes.
The project, initially expected to begin in October last year,
has been postponed several times, mainly due to poor planning.
The City Transportation Agency failed to provide an exact date
for the start of the project, but Governor Sutiyoso hinted it
could be by the middle of the year. Two buses will begin trials
next month, but they won't carry passengers.
To date, many changes have been made to the original plan, but
most will have no impact on anticipated problems.
One of the controversial concepts launched by the City
Transportation Agency on Tuesday, was to use existing parking
lots around Blok M for private vehicles belonging to would-be bus
passengers.
"It's silly. The parking plots belong to private owners, which
have the right to use the parking lots for their own purposes.
The agency can not simply claim the lots for their own purposes,"
said J. Sumabrata, an urban transport researcher for non-
governmental organization Pelangi.
Sumabrata said the plan to use the already fully used parking
lots would disturb businesses in the vicinity.
The project, which will use one of three lanes along the main
arteries from Blok M to Kota, aims to encourage private vehicle
owners to use buses.
However, Yunita was skeptical that private car owners would
opt to use buses.
"Of course, I don't want to pay high parking fees in Blok M."
Experts have warned that the administration needs a more
integrated and thought through plan. Otherwise, the project is
doomed to fail, resulting in further chaos.
In the early 1990s, the administration implemented a system
which allowed buses to use the fast lane along Jl. Jend. Sudirman
and Jl. MH Thamrin. The project failed as passengers had
difficulty crossing the motorway to the buses in the fastlane
near the median strip. The failure forced the administration to
abandon the project and return to the old system where buses used
the slow lane.
In the latest project, the administration has built two bus
stops on Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat, Central Jakarta, from the
planned 30 bus stops in every lane; red painted marks to show the
dedicated bus lane from Blok M to Harmoni; and some information
on notice boards.
Public access to information about the project thus far has
also been very limited.
Some changes in busway project
Item previous recent
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Budget Rp 54 billion Rp 90.5 billion
Buses 50 units 60 units
Bridges pedestrian overpasses zebra crossings
Road road dividers red painted marks