Jakarta’s long ride to an MRT is almost over. Will it boost Widodo during the Indonesian election?

After a delay of almost 30 years, the capital is about to get a US$1.1 billion subway system, just in time for the April polls

The president is talking up his work in getting it across the line, but there is more to do to solve congestion in the traffic-clogged city

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The first corridor of Jakarta’s US$1.1 billion MRT connects the iconic Hotel Indonesia roundabout at the city centre to Lebak Bulus in the city’s south. Photo: Kyodo

Published: 12:00pm, 21 Feb 2019Updated: 2:26pm, 12 Dec 2019

Maya Rizki is fed up with her daily Jakarta commute, which can take up to five hours. The mother of two lives in the eastern part of the Indonesian capital and works in the southern part, some 15km apart. Every day, Rizki and her husband drive their children to schools along the way to their respective offices. To avoid the morning rush hour, she tries to leave the house at 5am, a ritual familiar to many Jakartans.

“If I leave after 6am, I will be stuck in traffic for 1.5 or two hours,” said the 42-year-old civil servant. “During the after-work rush hour, if I leave my office after 5pm, it will take two to three hours to reach home. Sometimes I only get home by 9pm.”

But things are looking up for Rizki and 30 million other Jakartans, as the city prepares to launch its long-awaited Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), which will officially open to the public in the fourth week of March, according to PT MRT Jakarta – the city-owned firm set up to build and maintain the subway system.

The first corridor of the 16 trillion rupiah (US$1.1 billion) system is 16km long, connecting the iconic Hotel Indonesia roundabout at the city centre to Lebak Bulus in south Jakarta. There are 13 stations and the route took less than 30 minutes to complete during a recent trial for European diplomats, an astonishingly swift journey by the standards of the traffic-clogged metropolis.

The MRT will operate from 5am to midnight every day, and MRT Jakarta expects it to accommodate up to 130,000 passengers daily. Trains will run every 10 minutes, and every five minutes during rush hour, with proposed fares ranging from 8,500 rupiah (60 US cents) for the first 10km to 12,800 (91 US cents) rupiah for all 13 stations.

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Jakarta’s long ride to an MRT is almost over. Will it boost Widodo during the Indonesian election?

After a delay of almost 30 years, the capital is about to get a US$1.1 billion subway system, just in time for the April polls The president is talking up his work in getting it across the line, but there is more to do to solve congestion in the traffic-clogged city

After a delay of almost 30 years, the capital is about to get a US$1.1 billion subway system, just in time for the April polls

The president is talking up his work in getting it across the line, but there is more to do to solve congestion in the traffic-clogged city