Bandung, IndonesiaSentinel.com — The Bali underground Light Rail Transit (LRT) project worth USD $10.8 billion, or equivalent to IDR 167 trillion, officially started on Wednesday, September 4, 2024. The LRT, which will be constructed 30 meters underground, will require four phases, with phases one and two expected to be able to operate by 2031.
The groundbreaking was marked by a traditional Pengeruwakan ceremony at the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Central Parking area in Kuta, Badung, Bali. President and Director of PT Sarana Bali Dwipa Jaya (SBDJ), Ari Askhara, said that the ceremony marked the beginning of the project, which had been initiated in February 2024.
Ari explained that there are 10 giant drills, namely tunnel boring machines (TBM), that will be brought in in April 2025 for this LRT project. Until then, construction will focus on the station corridors.
“While we wait for the tunnel construction, the work will be focused on building construction in each station, which takes considerable time. Drilling for the LRT from the beginning takes more than one to two years. We aim to finish before that,” said Ari.
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The Bali LRT project will be developed in four phases. The first phase will connect I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport to Kuta Central Parking, Seminyak, Berawa, and Cemagi, covering a 16-kilometer route.
Then the second phase connected the route from I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport – Udayana University (Unud) – Nusa Dua, with a length of 13.5 km.
Furthermore, the third phase of the Kuta Sentral Parking – Sesetan – Renon – Sanur line is still in the feasibility study (FS) stage. Having the same condition, the fourth phase is the Renon – Sukawati – Ubud line, which is also still in the FS stage.
Ari noted that the completion of phase one, or the underground LRT line, would take a longer time with high difficulty. The route in Kuta, Seminyak, Canggu, and Cemagi passes through rocky and hard soil, causing the work to be a little slow with a drilling process of 3 meters per day. In contrast, the Nusa Dua area has a type of limestone soil so that the drilling process can be faster up to 30 meters per day.
The construction of the Ngurah Rai Airport to Kuta Central Parking route, along with the entirety of phase two, is expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter of 2028, with full operations anticipated by the end of 2031. This construction takes the total investment value of the first two phases is USD $10.8 billion (IDR 167 trillion), with the total cost of the four phases being USD $20 billion.
(Raidi/Agung)
