If You Want All Railway Crossings To Be Passed By Vehicles, You Need A Fund Of IDR 300 Trillion

Photo via Antara

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) needs around Rp. 300 trillion to clean up the problem of railroad crossings. This amount of funds will be used to build flyovers or underpass as an alternative to reduce the potential for accidents.

The calculation refers to the presence of around 3,000 of the 4,000 railroad crossing points in the field which are often congestion points and have risk of accidents.

Director General of Highways of the Ministry of PUPR Hedy Rahadian in a hearing meeting (RDP) with Commission V of the DPR RI explained that the calculation is assuming that one flyover or underpass requires a construction cost of around Rp. 150 billion for national roads.

"If we look at it now, maybe not all underpasses and flyovers require IDR 150 billion, if not national roads, but with 3,000 points, it means that to complete the intersection, we need IDR 300 trillion," he said, Wednesday, September 14, quoted from Antara.

Hedy explained that of the approximately 3,000 crossing points, the railway line that directly crossed the national road reached 199 points.

Of the total 199 crossing points, 49 of them have been built flyovers or underpasses, while the remaining 150 points are estimated to require a budget of around Rp. 22.5 trillion for flyovers or underpasses to be built.

"About one flyover or underpass on the national road is Rp. 150 billion, we need almost Rp. 22.5 trillion," he said.

This is also in accordance with the rules that refer to the Railway Law, the intersection between the railway and road lines must be made not in the same field by building flyovers or underpasses or closing for the safety of train travel and road users.

"So this is indeed a very large cost to fulfill the principle that the best is not in the field according to the mandate of the law," he said.