(Corrects year in second paragraph to 2007, not 2006) By Olivia Rondonuwu JAKARTA, 23 April (Reuters) - The construction of a new $560 million canal in the Indonesian capital should help end crippling floods that regularly hit Jakarta by 2012, the city's governor Fauzi Bowo said on Wednesday. Authorities have so far failed to tackle the floods, which killed 50 people during the wet season in 2007 and triggered more chaos in February this year, swamping huge swathes of the teeming city and shutting Jakarta's main airport for hours. Bowo, who took over as governor in October, said that the floods should be controlled by the end of his five-year term, but was less optimistic on the capital's notorious traffic woes. "For the floods it's much easier, because there's a light at the end of the tunnel," he told foreign correspondents. Land purchase problems have hampered building of the city's new 5.2 trillion rupiah ($564.6 million) East Flood Canal, but Bowo said that land acquisition had now reached 80 percent. Bowo, a trained engineer, said the low-lying city needed to secure a loan of 1.2 trillion rupiah to help pay for maintenance on the existing West flood canal. "As for traffic, it's a little more difficult," he added. Traffic in the city crawls along at snails pace during peak hours, hitting businesses and frustrating the 14 million people estimated to live in the city and its suburbs. Bowo said a "three-in-one" scheme in the city centre, which restricts use of the fast lanes to those cars carrying three or more people, was failing and the city was considering a congestion charge such as is used in Singapore or London. "I know three-in-one is not working, it's absolute nonsense, but this is a kind of introduction," he said. The governor said the a rapid bus system on designated lanes had helped improve the public transport system and would be expanded to ten routes from seven now. Bowo also said the government planned to start on the construction of a subway next year, targetting 2014 to complete the first leg of the project. He said the city was also considering taking over a private monorail project, which has been partly built but has now halted after running into financial problems. ($1=9210 Rupiah) (Editing by Ed Davies and Alex Richardson)
Environmental activists perform on the eve of Earth Day in Makassar, Indonesia's South Sulawesi province, April 21, 2008. The performance is a call to protect trees on Earth. REUTERS/Yusuf Ahmad (INDONESIA) ...
