After yielding to demands that the busway lanes should be opened to other traffic, the governor decided to revoke it and reserve the lane for TransJakarta only. Fauzi Bowo seems to really enjoy playing this TJ-busway game. You know, start a fun, not-so-serious project; play here and there; cut down trees; take roads away; let the city drown in traffic jam. Oops, we forgot to add the buses, where on earth are they?
So, the governor took away road spaces once more. It will reduce travel time for the busway (duh!) but it will also make more traffic jams as there's less space for the cars and wild motorbikes. The policy tends to overfavor TJ passengers over other road user, who also pay their taxes. IF there's enough road, as in Sudirman, it's fine to have an exclusive lane (although I still don't agree); but in many cases, the lanes took existing road space from roads already clogged with cars.
Obviously, the govt can't just zap car users into the insufficient busway service, so there's gotta be a win-win solution. Cars should have the right to the lanes while we must also make sure that TJ's trip isn't hindered by traffic.
One way to do so is to increase the frequency of the buses. Right now, the bus lanes lay useless for the long times between buses. It's a shame to not let cars use them. So, if the govt wants to really drive cars out of the lane and attract more TJ passengers, ADD MORE BUSES! Even if they open the bus lanes to all traffic, people will be hesitant to use the bus lanes given that the buses frequently pass. In addition, when the buses are not so frequent, the bus lanes can be used for other traffic.
So, rather than taking roads away from the citizen, they should really do an introspection first. The govt is just playing nice so it will have more support for its unprepared busway projects.
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