New Jakarta governor looks to resurrect monorail plan

JAKARTA (THE JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - On his first day in office, Jakarta Governor Joko "Jokowi" Widodo met with State-Owned Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan to discuss ways to solve the city's traffic woes, including a plan to revive the abandoned monorail project.

"I want the project to be presented to me again, because I want to understand why it was stopped," Mr Joko said after the meeting on Tuesday.

Former governor Fauzi Bowo called off the project in 2011, three years after its developer, PT Jakarta Monorail, halted construction due to legal and financial problems.

Earlier this year, the city administration under Mr Fauzi announced that it planned to use the concrete columns left by the initial construction phase for part of an elevated bus rapid transit (BRT) project.