Tol Mengwi-Gilimanuk Bali, Governor Koster Meets the Ministry of Public Works to Discuss Development

The Shiro Copr, DENPASAR - The construction of the Mengwi-Gilimanuk Toll Road will be accelerated by the government.

This was revealed by the Governor of Bali, Wayan Koster, when opening the Denpasar-Gilimanuk connecting road, precisely in Bajera Village, Selemadeg District, Tabanan Regency, Bali, on Saturday, July 19, 2025.

According to him, the Mengwi-Gilimanuk Toll Road is urgent because the national roads in the Bali region are very crowded.

"Tol Gilimanuk-Mengwi is not being urged because of this (road collapse incident), because it was already planned from the beginning, considering that Gilimanuk-Denpasar is a very busy national route. Not only does it carry ordinary passengers, but it also transports logistics from Java to Bali and vice versa, which determines our economic life. So if this is disrupted, there will be problems with our economy," explained Koster.

It is stated that with the reopening of the Denpasar-Gilimanuk route via Bajera, there are no more problems, and the Gilimanuk-Mengwi Toll Road will continue its planning.

Moreover, next week Koster said he will discuss the progress of the toll road construction with the Ministry of Public Works (PU).

"Next week, I will have another meeting with the Director General of Infrastructure Financing from the Ministry of Public Works to discuss the steps to be taken in relation to this Gilimanuk-Mengwi toll road project," he said.

The Minister will officially open the Denpasar-Gilimanuk route, which had collapsed, on Saturday, July 19, 2025.

After officially opening traffic, the road can operate again, so large vehicles no longer need to pass through alternative routes via Buleleng and Karangasem regencies.

Koster's presence at the opening of Bajera Road is said to represent the Minister of Public Works, as in his capacity, the Governor is the representative of the central government.

"Thus, the Director General earlier has conveyed about what has been done today (yesterday). He expressed his gratitude. I came here directly to ease the atmosphere that had been troubled for several days here," he said.

The Denpasar-Gilimanuk connecting road, exactly in Bajera Village, Selemadeg District, Tabanan Regency, temporarily experienced a collapse.

As a result, large vehicles such as buses must take alternative routes to reach Denpasar City, and vice versa.

For bus drivers, they must change the route through Buleleng Regency to reach Denpasar.

Meanwhile, the tractor-trailer must pass through Karangasem Regency to arrive in Denpasar.

Now, buses and big trucks can again cross the Tabanan-Mengwi route on Saturday, July 19, 2025.

This is because the national road connecting Gilimanuk-Denpasar has officially been opened after undergoing repairs.

Tribun Bali's report shows that a number of buses and trucks have started to pass from Tabanan direction towards Mengwi Terminal and vice versa from Denpasar towards Tabanan.

The road repair was carried out by the National Road Implementation Agency (BPJN) East Java-Bali since the incident of the road collapse on Monday, July 7, 2025.

After going through 12 days of repair, the road was completed faster than the initial estimate of 3 weeks.

"Initially, the repair estimate was one month. However, I requested it to be accelerated to a maximum of two weeks. Fortunately, I received a report that the work was completed on the night of (Friday) July 18, and today (Saturday, July 19), the road is already passable," explained Koster.

She appreciates the hard work of the BPJN team, which is considered to have successfully completed the repairs according to the standard.

Moreover, this route is a vital access point used by large vehicles transporting logistics.

"Hopefully, with the reopening of this road, traffic flows will resume smoothly, and the community's trade activities can return to normal," he added.

She also expressed gratitude to the community, especially netizens, who actively provided information and encouragement to accelerate the improvement.

The joy was also felt by the surrounding community and drivers who had been affected by the road closure.

They enthusiastically welcomed the reopening of the main connection route between West and East Bali.

Meanwhile, the Person in Charge (PPK) 1.3 PJN I Bali, Pramono Tri Yulianto, stated that although the road can already be passed.

Meanwhile, the maintenance and improvement process will continue to be carried out.

"After the first handover or PHO (Provisional Hand Over), road maintenance will take place for one year. We will continue cleaning and repairing the sidewalks, including repairs to alternative roads that are also damaged," said Pramono.

They added that although the repair contract was given a period of two months, they managed to complete the main work in only 12 days.

Remaining work includes sidewalk fireplace, completion of inlet, and restoration of the damaged alternative road function.

"We will also work on restoring the alternative road conditions. The Governor has also stated that he will allocate funds for the repair of damage caused by this natural disaster," he explained.

As for the estimated budget required for all the repair work, including the alternative road, it ranges from Rp 3 billion to Rp 4 billion.

After all work is completed, an audit will be conducted by the auditing institution before the official budget release application.

Bus Driver Happy

A bus driver, Panji (31), said when he was interviewed at Mengwi Terminal that he would take the normal route, from Tabanan to Gilimanuk.

She has already been traveling through the alternative route of Bedugul and Buleleng for almost a month.

"Today (yesterday) it is already possible to pass (through Tabanan) heading to Surabaya (East Java). Before that, almost every day it was passing through Bedugul," explained Panji, Saturday, July 19, 2025.

He admitted when passing through Bedugul road, he had many complaints.

Because the road is very steep, it also increases operational costs such as fuel.

Now it should cross the national road in Tabanan with 14 passengers heading to Surabaya City.

"Many complaints, this is from Mengwi Terminal, transporting 14 passengers. It's quite fast to repair the road in Bajera," he concluded.

Previously, truck drivers complained about the alternative route they had to take due to the collapse of the national road in Bajera a few days ago.

Usually, when passing through Jembrana and Tabanan towards Denpasar City, the travel time is only 8 hours.

However, after taking the longer alternative route from Gilimanuk to Karangasem Regency, it took up to 12 hours to arrive in Denpasar City.

This was revealed by the construction material transport driver, Suranto (50), when he was met on Tuesday, July 15, 2025.

Besides complaining about the long alternative route, Suranto also said that the route is too extreme for large trucks.

"Already affected. The impact of the journey is going around, we should calculate it as 8 hours from the Port (Gilimanuk) arriving here (Denpasar). An alternative route via Karangasem could take 12 hours. The road is steep, with sharp turns, and many short trees causing frequent branch collisions. We had to go through there because there was no other way," he explained. (sar)

Criticism Becomes an Encouragement

Bali Governor Wayan Koster thanked netizens who criticized and bullied during the renovation of the Denpasar-Gilimanuk national road, specifically in Bajera Village, Selemadeg District, Tabanan Regency.

He stated this during the inauguration of the reopening of the national road in Bajera on Saturday, July 19, 2025.

According to him, the information about the broken road spread quickly thanks to netizens.

"Thank you also to the netizens who provided information to me to accelerate the work, so that I am really motivated. Thank you also to the netizens who insulted me, because that is an encouragement. If there is no one angry, it means that later we might be less motivated. Therefore, thank you to those who insulted me, those who got angry, all of them, getting angry also means patience," said Koster.

Furthermore, Koster said that when serving as a government administrator, serving the community, one must be patient in accepting the community's complaints.

Although the way his suggestion was delivered was not good, Koster admitted he would accept all of them.

"All of this is for the sake of accelerating the completion of this work. Now that it has reopened, traffic from Gilimanuk to Denpasar has returned to normal, there are no more logistics distribution problems, so everything has become normal again, and all the obstacles and disruptions during that time have been well resolved," he said.

Koster hopes that by reopening this national road, the people in the Tabanan area, who previously had little trade and were quiet because no vehicles passed through and did shopping, will recover and return to normal. (sar)

Collection of Articles Bali