President Joko Widodo is set to inaugurate Jakarta’s highly-anticipated mass rapid transit (MRT) system this Sunday, but local legislators have still not decided upon a final fare for the decades-in-gestation public transport service. While some city councilors want to make the MRT free for Jakarta citizens, Governor Anies Baswedan says the idea is impossible given budgetary restriction and said a relatively steep price of IDR1,000 (US$0.07) per kilometer was likely.
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Commission B of Jakarta City Council held a meeting on the MRT tariff yesterday and came away with a proposal to make the new mass transit option free for the first year to all Jakarta citizens.
One of the commissioners, Subandi, argued that making the MRT free to start with would be the most effective way of getting people to make the switch from private vehicles to public transport.
“I want it to be free. If it becomes a habit, the community will become comfortable with it,” he said yesterday as quoted by Detik.
Although the proposal was sent to the administration for review, it seems Governor Anies has already dismissed it as unfeasible.
“It is impossible, the funds are limited. But it will be discussed later,” Anies told reporters at the North Jakarta Mayor’s Office yesterday evening.
Anies said that, based on his administration’s cost estimates, passengers should be charged about IDR1,000 per kilometer. The full-length of the first MRT line — running from Lebak Bulus in South Jakarta to Bundaran HI in Central Jakarta — is 15 kilometers, meaning tickets for the MRT could run up to IDR15,000, a hefty price for daily commuters compared to other transportation options.
Jakarta Ombudsman Alvin Lie told Detik that the IDR15,000 was too heavy and was worried that the MRT may face the same fate as the train to Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta Airport, which is rarely used due to it uncompetitively high price.
At any rate, we’ll find out soon as Anies and others have promised that the tariff would be set before the inauguration on Sunday. Commercial operations of the MRT are set to begin on April 1, according to Governor Anies.
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