Background The Jabodebek light rapid transit project aims to tackle Jakarta's high road traffic congestion. The northern section of the LRT project partly replaces the
Jakarta Monorail project which has been cancelled. The monorail project in Jakarta was planned since the early 2000s. Construction commenced in 2004 but immediately stalled due to insufficient funding. In 2005 the initial
pylons were constructed. However, the project was abandoned altogether in 2008, leaving the unfinished pylons blocking the main roads. The monorail line design, including the Green loop line and Blue line gained criticism as it only connected shopping malls in Jakarta's city center and would not connect to Jakarta's suburbs, which desperately need transportation infrastructure, and thus would not be useful for Jakartan
commuters. Transportation experts deemed that the city center monorail project would not address Jakarta's traffic problems, but would only serve as a novelty tourists' ride. To answer the need for commuter infrastructure, a consortium of five state owned enterprises, led by PT Adhi Karya (previously part of the
Jakarta Monorail consortium), proposed the construction of a monorail line connecting
Cibubur-
Cawang-
Kuningan and
Bekasi-
Cawang across
Greater Jakarta. The line will connect the 'Green' and 'Blue' lines originally planned by
PT Jakarta Monorail to Jakarta's suburbs Cibubur and Bekasi.
Replaced to light rapid transit In 2013, the Jakarta monorail project was revived and relaunched. In mid-2014, however, the project was stalled after a disagreement between
PT Jakarta Monorel, the developer/operator, and the Jakarta Provincial Government over land acquisition for the depot as well as the station designs. Following the disagreements, by 2015 the Jakarta Provincial Government under
Basuki Tjahaja Purnama terminated its contract with
PT Jakarta Monorel; thus monorail project was disbanded altogether. The numerous stalled monorail support poles will be used by state-owned construction company PT Adhi Karya to develop Jakarta's light rapid transit instead. The shift of choice from
monorail to a traditional rapid transit system was based on several considerations; compared to monorail, LRT has higher passenger capacity, simpler intersection and switching system, and cheaper maintenance cost. ==Lines==