The Jakarta administration has announced plans to build 5 overpasses and underpasses at railway crossings to minimize train accidents within the capital. Gatra magazine reported earlier this month that there were 549 railway crossings in Jakarta — 197 were built illegally by local residents; 186 were manned by secur
The Jakarta administration has announced plans to build 5 overpasses and underpasses at railway crossings to minimize train accidents within the capital.
Gatra magazine reported earlier this month that there were 549 railway crossings in Jakarta — 197 were built illegally by local residents; 186 were manned by security officers; and 123 were legal but not manned.
“Overpasses will be built at the railway crossings in Bintaro and Permata Hijau, while underpasses will be built at Ulujami and Madiun,” Wahyu Wijayanto, the head of programs and funding at the Jakarta Development Planning Board (Bappeda), told the Jakarta Globe on Tuesday.
The construction of the overpasses and underpasses will be handled by the city's public works office, he said. The project is expected to be finished within 10 months and will cost Rp$30 billion (US$246,000).
Azas Tigor Nainggolan, chairman of the independent Jakarta Citizens Forum (Fakta), who also serves as chairman of the city-funded Jakarta Transportation Council, said that most train accidents in Jakarta were the fault of careless motorists and poor railway maintenance and weak regulations imposed by state-owned railway operator Kereta Api Indonesia.
Azas speculated that one problem may be the increasingly standard use of railroad crossing sirens to control traffic regardless of whether trains are passing or not.