T

he Jakarta administration has decided to use the concrete columns of the abandoned monorail project in an elevated bus rapid transit (BRT) project.

Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo re-affirmed Wednesday that the city would not continue the stalled monorail project.

“We will start a bus-based transportation project,” Fauzi said.

The governor said it would be too costly to continue the monorail project. “Furthermore, the operational cost of the monorail would be too much to afford.”

The monorail project construction was halted in March 2008 by developer PT Jakarta Monorail due to legal and financial problems.

The initial construction left around 150 columns along the roads in Senayan in Central Jakarta and Kuningan in South Jakarta.

The first monorail line, which was expected to cost US$484 million, was planned to be a 14.3-kilometer route connecting Semanggi and Kuningan in South Jakarta, and have a capacity of 120,000 passengers per day.

PT Jakarta Monorail has asked Rp 600 billion ($68.4 million) in compensation for the halted construction project.

Fauzi said the city would only pay a maximum Rp 204 billion in compensation for the aborted project.

Later on Wednesday, City Transportation Agency head Udar Pristono said the planned elevated BRT would be integrated into the Transjakarta BRT.

“We will build elevated exclusive lanes for the buses, but not special tracks like O-Bahn,” Pristono said.

He was referring to the O-Bahn track design, in which buses ran on a specially built track, combining elements of both bus and rail systems.

Pristono said the elevated BRT would have two lanes running back and forth between Jl. Sudirman and Jl. Gatot Subroto, via Semanggi, Senayan, Palmerah, Pejompongan and Kuningan.

The network will have 16 stations, with 12 of them connected to the Transjakarta route, served by a total of 50 articulated buses.

The headway between the buses, with a total capacity of 180 passengers each, is expected to be around 3 minutes.

A study by the agency shows that the elevated system will serve more than 7,300 people per hour during peak hours, or almost 46,000 passengers per day.

The ticket price for the elevated BRT will be the same as Transjakarta, currently at Rp 3,500.

Pristono said the existing columns would need to be reinforced for the project, adding a concrete layer to enlarge the pillars from its current dimension of 120 by 160 centimeters to 160 by 200 centimeters.