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Editorial: Busway backward
This is a serious test for Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo, who overwhelmingly won the gubernatorial election in August last year
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This is a serious test for Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo, who overwhelmingly won the gubernatorial election in August last year. The governor himself cannot often hide his disappointment at the very slow progress -- nearly one year -- of three newly developed busway corridors.
We imagine how frustrated the people are who have to wait -- again and again -- for the services and the people who have to endure the worsening traffic congestion along the three designated routes during the construction of the infrastructure.
It is likely that the sacrifice made by the people forced to brave worsening traffic every day will not immediately pay off as the Jakarta city administration is not ready to deploy buses to the available corridors. Reportedly, it has not even carried out a tender to procure the buses. This may cause even more delays.
The City administration has committed a blunder. Any explanation will be hard to accept because if there is a problem, the administration has had one year to anticipate it, particularly during the construction period of corridors 8, 9, and 10.
The three -- the latest busway corridors developed -- respectively will serve Lebak Bulus in South Jakarta to Harmoni in Central Jakarta (19.62 km), Pinang Ranti in East Jakarta to Pluit in North Jakarta (45.6 km), and Cililitan in East Jakarta to Tanjung Priok in North Jakarta (37.8 km).
When the three projects were kicked off last September, a city administration official expressed their optimism that they would operate early this year. "The corridors 8, 9, and 10 are now under construction and will finish within 107 days," City Transportation Agency head Wishnu Subagyo was quoted by the press as saying in September, last year.
It is understandable that the completion of the projects were delayed for months due to various problems, including residents' rejection of Pondok Indah in South Jakarta. But it is really odd that the city cannot supply the corridors with buses now that they are ready to use.
Currently, the city operates seven busway corridors and is expected to develop five more to complete the all public transportation project in the city.
The failure to supply buses is a further blow to the performance of busway, which was designed to become the backbone of the city's public transportation system.
The success of its first corridor from Blok M in South Jakarta to Kota in Central Jakarta has not been repeated by the six other corridors. The successful operation of the BLok M-Kota corridor since 2004 has boosted optimism that the busway was a good choice to improve public transportation. Many motorists have shifted to the corridor because of its high reliability and convenience.
With the busway, which is far cheaper than other mass rapid transit (MRT) -- subway, conventional railway and monorail -- the city planned to expand services of the public transportation into the largest areas across the city.
Unfortunately, the city could not maintain the service in other corridors, particularly due to its failure to supply an adequate number of buses along the existing corridors.
We believe that an adequate number of buses on each corridor is vital to maintaining a high quality of service. With it, the busway operator could keep an ideal flow of buses. Furthermore, travelers would not need to stand too long at bus shelters and they would not sweat inside overcrowded buses.
It seems that the problem cannot be addressed in the near future.
In the case of the latest three corridors, initially, the administration planned to deploy some 207 buses there. But to keep the city's plan to operate the corridors immediately, the city administration has to rely on only 80 new buses, which were to originally operate in the other corridors.
It is really bad news for motorists and other busway users. Why? If the administration insists on operating the three corridors with the available buses, the busway operator will not be able to maintain a good flow of buses.
Busway users will have to endure the long waiting times to then pack into overcrowded buses. Meanwhile, motorists will face even worse traffic because they will no longer be allowed to pass through busway corridors.
How can the city encourage motorists to shift to busway to ease road burden if the administration fails to keep high quality of busway services?
The governor has to look closely to all problems inside busway operation. Otherwise, he will have to see bitter fact that traffic congestions will keep worsening until the end of his term.
