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Jakarta administration officials say their ambitious plan to build the Pulo Gebang bus terminal in East Jakarta is missing one key element: a permit from the Transportation Ministry.

The permit is needed for a planned access ramp that would connect the terminal to the Jakarta Outer Ring Road (JORR).

“We need permission from the Transportation Ministry to get access to the toll road,” Riza Hasyim, deputy head of the Jakarta Transportation Office, said on Tuesday. “The governor will soon file a request with the ministry.”

The Public Works Ministry has already approved the access ramp from the terminal to the JORR, but the project also requires a permit from the Transportation Ministry.

Riza said there had been a minor change to the blueprint for the planned ramp, but that this would not delay construction on the project, which is expected to start this month. The tender for the project was opened last Friday.

“We still expect to have the project finished by 2011 as planned,” Riza said.

Once completed, according to the administration, the terminal in East Jakarta will be the country’s biggest and most modern, and will have the ability to accommodate more than 2,900 buses. It will also have parking for about 550 cars.

The Rp 500 billion ($54 million) project will serve intercity buses that now use the out-of-date Pulo Gadung terminal. It is also part of the Transit Oriented Development plan being drafted by the city administration.

Another part of the development plan is setting restrictions on the age of public transportation vehicles.

Administration officials have met with representatives from the Jakarta office of the Organization of Land Transportation Owners (Organda) and is awaiting their response to the proposal.

Udar Pristono, head of the Jakarta Transportation Office, said the idea behind the plan to limit the age of public transportation vehicles was to provide commuters with better service in an attempt to get more people to leave their vehicles at home, which would ease traffic congestion.

“It’s in everyone’s interests,” he said. “Commuters will get a more comfortable ride, and public transportation operators will make a greater profit.”

Udar said the proposed restriction also would apply to bajaj (auto-rickshaws) and bemo (public minivan), the latter having been officially outlawed since 1996 under a gubernatorial decree.

He said the city had earlier launched a “Blue Sky” program to encourage bajaj owners to trade in their old vehicles for new ones that run on cleaner natural gas.

“Of the estimated 14,000 bajaj in the city, only 600 have been turned in for new ones,” he said, adding that owners may be reluctant to join the program because of the high trade-in cost.

Udar also said each of the capital’s five municipalities was in the process of trying to phase out the bemo.

“The problem is the drivers always pop up again,” he said.

The city originally wanted to be rid of all bemo by 2011.