The indonesian busway, are they really neccessary?

At the start of 2005-2006 periods, the government introduced the “busway” system to the Indonesian public with the hope of reducing traffic congestion. The Indonesian government originally contemplates the idea from London’s similar type of busway. Yet in reality, the busway has created even more traffic, not to mention the amount of money, and more importantly time lost in the catastrophe. A couple of days ago our economics teacher started to share with us about an article he read in Kompas. What was amazing was that, from a national survey they discovered that from traffic alone, Indonesia has lost 46 trillion rupiah each year! Not to mention the amount of time lost in the process. A typical example can be seen in the average person working in the city. A normal employee working in Jakarta would travel around 0-2 hours a day with the exception of no traffic. Imagine with the new enforcement of the busway opening in different locations in the city. Traffic would not only increase severely, people would waste hours and hours of valuable time in the car. My question is: the government has the power to take in account to reduce traffic by subsidizing for the busway, but at what cost? Has the government thought of the consequence of even higher amounts of traffic congestion happening? Is this form of alternate transportation really effective towards the people? In my opinion, the busway in the long run may be effective. Hence, I strongly believe that the government should abolish the busway system and use the money to increase other forms of alternate transportation.

By: Nicholas Sudharta (Administrator)