Jakarta to deliver on elevated roads plan

Mustaqim Adamrah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sat, 05/03/2008 11:14 AM

Despite criticism from urban and transportation experts, the city administration is moving forward with its plan to construct elevated roads, including six turnpikes, in the inner part of the city.

Deputy Governor Prijanto said the administration is setting up a special company, called PT Jakarta Toll Road Development, that would help garner 67 percent of Rp 40 trillion (US$4.34 billion) total investment to run the project.

The administration would control ownership in the new company through the city-owned construction firms PT Jakarta Propertindo and PT Pembangunan Jaya.

The remaining 33 percent of the project share would be offered in a public bidding.

"This (new) company has both the concept and the cash. So it has the right to own shares in the project," Prijanto said on Friday at the City Hall in Central Jakarta.

The administration plans to build more elevated roads to reduce traffic woes in the city. Ground-level road constructions are no longer feasible due to limited land availability in the city.

Transportation experts say the elevated roads project will not ease congestion in the city, and instead invite more cars and make traffic jams worse.

According to a survey by Japan International Cooperation Agency, the capital's streets will be paralyzed by 2014 due to rapid growth in the number of vehicles.

Chairman of the Indonesian Transportation Society, Bambang Susantono, said road construction would only be appropriate for the outskirts of the city.

"A good public transportation system is enough to link the inner part of the city. The administration and the central government should be consistent in developing it," he said.

Bambang said the Rp 40 trillion allocated to the project would be better spent in establishing a rail-based rapid transit system linking the eastern and western parts of the city.

However, the administration has scheduled road construction to begin next year in North Jakarta, along with the construction of a Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) construction in the southern part of Jakarta.

The Rp 8.3 trillion MRT project will stretch 14.3 kilometers from Lebak Bulus, South Jakarta, to Dukuh Atas, Central Jakarta and is expected to be finished in 2014.

Governor Fauzi Bowo said the administration had arranged for the two mega projects to be less disruptive to road networks in the city.