Jakarta’s Busway system is potentially a wonderful thing. Those of us who have been hardy enough to get on the Busway will notice that it gets you from A to B in record time whereas everyone else is stuck in traffic. The buses are also air conditioned and reasonably clean.
There are now four new busway routes under construction and motorists are all in a huff over the narrowed roads that cause massive traffic jams. Sutiyoso has said, with some logic, that there is no gain without pain.
Fair enough but is the pain worth the gain? The busway has potential but to make it reach its potential the City administrators have to think beyond busses. It is positively not a good experience getting to and coming out of the busway stations.
The ramps leading up to the stations are made of sheet metal welded together. Beggars and vendors line the ramps. The metal in some stations have been worn down by trafic making them slippery and dangerous. And once you leave the stations you encounter hawker stalls and all manner of obstacles, potholes and rubbish strewn on the streets.
Why, oh why, cant the City administrators realize that if they want to make the busway a viable alternative trasport to its city’s millions, it has to make the entire busway experience — which involves getting to and away from the bus stations to thier destinations — pleasant?
They need not be too ambitious to start. Just declare one small area of Jakarta aroudn the subway a pilot zone and make sure that the entire experience and journey is pleasant, or at any rate not unpleasant as it is now. If they can keep up that up in that particular are for, say, six months to a year, I’ll bet that other areas would follow suit. Its all in the power of context as malcom Gladwell would have it.
As a non-Jakarta resident, I found the experience of using busway as transportation was a lot more comfortable than the regular bus. Yes, the ramps are not for elderlies with arthritic problems, but I think most people just taken the “pedagang kakilima” for granted, and not bothered at all.
As for the high traffic, Sutiyoso’s right, there is no gain without pain. After all, Jakarta residents had been accustomed with it (but I never will, that’s why I only travel to places with busway stations near them).
The idea of bus-only lanes is a good one and has been proven in urban centers around the world to be a successful way to encourage public transportation use – and thus decrease the number of cars on the road – by ensuring safe, comfortable travel across town at predictable speeds and times. But you’re right that the problem of the Busway is that they’ve pasted a fairly reasonable piece of infrastructure onto the rubble of metropolitan Jakarta and it’s an uncomfortable fit. And KKN obviously nibbled at the budget allocations in terms of the materials used for the metallic (?) rampways which regularly fall apart and leave dangerous gaping holes in the walkways. Like much of Jakarta, not for the faint-of-heart. The laudable thing is that the Busway exists and is expanding. Hopefully non-existant or shambolic sidewalks etc. around the Busway stations will eventually get repaired and make access easier. But the key is that for those who don’t have a car or don’t want to submit themselves to the traffic jams, the Busway offers a viable alternative. The most vociferious opposition to the Busway comes, predictably, from car owners who would never submit themselves to the “indiginities” of public transit in any shape or form (Unspun, you’ve been outed, mate), but frankly the Busway wasn’t built for them and they’ll just have to put up with it.