ncr
13-05-04, 04:01 PM
note: this could have been posted in a number of different forum sections as well - e.g. Stories on 2Bangkok.com, Other mass transit issues, etc.
Hello all co-residents,
Did you also get the impression that the traffic situation in BKK gets worse every single day?
Every day I go along New Phetburi Rd by bus. Before, the traffic only used to slow down in front of intersections, but now, more often than not, it’s stop-and-go all the way.
No wonder when we consider the fact that currently 700 or so new cars are added to Bangkok's streets every day.... figure that out.... yes that is 250,000 per year! That again equals 167 cars per sq.km or 1 (additional, that is!) car per 6000 sq.m if we assume the area of Bangkok to be approx. 1500 sq.km (including low-density/rural suburbs like Khlong Sam Wa, Nong Chok, Bang Kunthian, Nongkhaem etc.)
BTW, Stickman [www.stickmanbangkok.com] also touched on this subject in his latest weekly (http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/Weekly/weekly157.html):
"Looking out of my apartment across the city, I have a good view of one of the city's expressways. This time last year one would expect to see the expressway at gridlock for perhaps 3 or 4 hours a day, peak hour time late afternoon, traffic moving at a crawl. I notice that it is jammed for about 10 hours a day these days. Traffic really is getting worse. I'd love to be able to go out for a spin occasionally, just for pleasure, but it seems in Bangkok, that just isn't possible with the state of the traffic."
Fortunately for me it's only 3 stations. But I know that many Thai people commute to work for 1 1/2, for 2, yes for 2 1/2 hours (one way) every day! I wonder how long it takes for you to get insane that way, senselessly wasting huge amounts of your precious life time stuck in (sometimes hot & noisy) buses inside catastrophic traffic jams day after day.
And still there are those figures who advocate nothing but individual/motorized traffic (in the recent time 2Bangkok extensively featured their ideas as published in the Thai media). If Bangkok is not a prime example for a city that urgently needs a comprehensive public transportation system, I don't know which place on earth is.... And I cannot understand how anyone couldn't like railways and mass transit systems... maybe I am too naive? (Actually I am not. I would describe myself as an ultra-realistic, though optimistic, cynicist. :D ) OK I understand, economic interests of the automobile clique of course. To them, personal profits count more than their compatriots' physical and mental health. Instead of giving Thailand/BKK the image of a modern place with the latest mass transit technology and a precursor for the region after all too many years of suffering by the local population, what is their idea?
Yes, you guessed it! Build even more expressways (preferably through residential areas where many old communities have to be evicted) and further add to the already intolerable levels of noise and pollution. Maybe throw in some busway that nobody really wants. Great plan, thank you! I gather most Bangkokians are fed up with these policies (also according to the mass transit polls published on 2B some time ago).
Absurd…. (ridiculous, if it wasn’t so sad) – there you have a metropolis with about 10 million people entangled in daily chaos, and a meager 2 Skytrain lines to ease the traffic. The city has been notorious for its motorized traffic for years and decades. Yet when faced with the proposal to urgently establish an effective public rail network, certain ‘experts’ still plainly refuse the idea, claiming that more expressways, new flyovers and tunnels at intersections, better timing of traffic lights, an intelligent traffic control system and other such remedies will do the trick. They fail to acknowledge that the problem remains the individual motorized traffic itself. Sure, their ‘solutions’ would maybe provide the necessary road space to cram in another 250,000 cars – and then you get the same problem again one year later!
But the subway is soooo expensive! We could build so many beautiful new motorways with that kind of money! (That's the point of view expressed in Siam Turakij, see below.) Ohhhh, please calm down and stop whining.
Yes, of course it costs a considerable amount of money. But that money is actually very well spent for a safe, fast, clean, reliable, pollution free means of transport not susceptible to traffic jams in any way. That's also very wise from an economical point of view as the traffic jams cost enormous sums of money in terms of working time lost. Not to mention waste of fuel and indirect costs of pollution (public health etc.).
When I read articles like these, I could cringe because of that unbearable hypocrisy in the face of the almost obscene levels of daily suffering of the commuters:
*Criticism of the subway – Siam Turakij, 18-24 April, 2004
*Siam Turakij and the subway - May 4, 2004
*Subway extensions delayed due to confusion and red tape - Manager Daily, May 9, 2004
*MRTA Governor: "Samrong-Taksin extension speed up plans dim chance to nationalize Skytrain" - translated and summarized by Wisarut Bholsithi from Than Setthakij, April 25-28, 2004
What the hell is the government's agenda? Nationalize mass transit while attempting to privatize EGAT...
BTS has made good efforts to restructure their debt; is profitable now; and has a convincing plan to further boost its income by an extension (Taksin) that can be completed at comparatively low costs due to special circumstances. But still the government interferes and blocks all progress while claiming to try everything to help improve the situation of the local population.
Obviously they want to take over from the private sector and only then push the extensions to be able to boast that it's all their work. (But at the same time refusing to pay at market prices for a profitable - if indebted - company! Being the only one responsible for the delay of the extensions, but blaming BTS instead because they don't want to sell.) “We only want the best for you, the Bangkok people, but the private sector won’t let us!” What they don’t say, of course, is that the private sector has everything to go ahead without the government’s help, but is constantly being sabotaged in its efforts.
Political rivalry (the childish 'vendettas' - due to the association of some mass transit/ construction companies with the Democrat Party) certainly also plays a role.
Or are they actually trying to bog everything down after the nationalization to discredit mass transit systems altogether for the vested interests of the automobile industry? (Contrary to the ambitious 6-year plan which is already running behind schedule now due to the silly political games being played.) Sadly, one cannot dismiss that possibility.
All this brings to mind another silly argument as I once read it in a guidebook published in 1997 where it said 'but many people think the construction works for the subway will only worsen the traffic situation for a considerable time' - so what??? Let's better not build a subway then and wait for the total gridlock? (Maybe General Salang also clings to this view.) One day it had to be started. It should have been started 20 or 30 years ago, of course. But starting today is still better than starting tomorrow. That 'argument' is the same as if a doctor said, 'Well I have a medicine to cure your deadly disease, but it has some side effects.... I think I better shouldn't prescribe it and let you die. This way at least, you won't suffer from the side effects.'
Waiting for Wisarut's comments....... ;) (I always enjoy his colourful political rants...)
Hello all co-residents,
Did you also get the impression that the traffic situation in BKK gets worse every single day?
Every day I go along New Phetburi Rd by bus. Before, the traffic only used to slow down in front of intersections, but now, more often than not, it’s stop-and-go all the way.
No wonder when we consider the fact that currently 700 or so new cars are added to Bangkok's streets every day.... figure that out.... yes that is 250,000 per year! That again equals 167 cars per sq.km or 1 (additional, that is!) car per 6000 sq.m if we assume the area of Bangkok to be approx. 1500 sq.km (including low-density/rural suburbs like Khlong Sam Wa, Nong Chok, Bang Kunthian, Nongkhaem etc.)
BTW, Stickman [www.stickmanbangkok.com] also touched on this subject in his latest weekly (http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/Weekly/weekly157.html):
"Looking out of my apartment across the city, I have a good view of one of the city's expressways. This time last year one would expect to see the expressway at gridlock for perhaps 3 or 4 hours a day, peak hour time late afternoon, traffic moving at a crawl. I notice that it is jammed for about 10 hours a day these days. Traffic really is getting worse. I'd love to be able to go out for a spin occasionally, just for pleasure, but it seems in Bangkok, that just isn't possible with the state of the traffic."
Fortunately for me it's only 3 stations. But I know that many Thai people commute to work for 1 1/2, for 2, yes for 2 1/2 hours (one way) every day! I wonder how long it takes for you to get insane that way, senselessly wasting huge amounts of your precious life time stuck in (sometimes hot & noisy) buses inside catastrophic traffic jams day after day.
And still there are those figures who advocate nothing but individual/motorized traffic (in the recent time 2Bangkok extensively featured their ideas as published in the Thai media). If Bangkok is not a prime example for a city that urgently needs a comprehensive public transportation system, I don't know which place on earth is.... And I cannot understand how anyone couldn't like railways and mass transit systems... maybe I am too naive? (Actually I am not. I would describe myself as an ultra-realistic, though optimistic, cynicist. :D ) OK I understand, economic interests of the automobile clique of course. To them, personal profits count more than their compatriots' physical and mental health. Instead of giving Thailand/BKK the image of a modern place with the latest mass transit technology and a precursor for the region after all too many years of suffering by the local population, what is their idea?
Yes, you guessed it! Build even more expressways (preferably through residential areas where many old communities have to be evicted) and further add to the already intolerable levels of noise and pollution. Maybe throw in some busway that nobody really wants. Great plan, thank you! I gather most Bangkokians are fed up with these policies (also according to the mass transit polls published on 2B some time ago).
Absurd…. (ridiculous, if it wasn’t so sad) – there you have a metropolis with about 10 million people entangled in daily chaos, and a meager 2 Skytrain lines to ease the traffic. The city has been notorious for its motorized traffic for years and decades. Yet when faced with the proposal to urgently establish an effective public rail network, certain ‘experts’ still plainly refuse the idea, claiming that more expressways, new flyovers and tunnels at intersections, better timing of traffic lights, an intelligent traffic control system and other such remedies will do the trick. They fail to acknowledge that the problem remains the individual motorized traffic itself. Sure, their ‘solutions’ would maybe provide the necessary road space to cram in another 250,000 cars – and then you get the same problem again one year later!
But the subway is soooo expensive! We could build so many beautiful new motorways with that kind of money! (That's the point of view expressed in Siam Turakij, see below.) Ohhhh, please calm down and stop whining.
Yes, of course it costs a considerable amount of money. But that money is actually very well spent for a safe, fast, clean, reliable, pollution free means of transport not susceptible to traffic jams in any way. That's also very wise from an economical point of view as the traffic jams cost enormous sums of money in terms of working time lost. Not to mention waste of fuel and indirect costs of pollution (public health etc.).
When I read articles like these, I could cringe because of that unbearable hypocrisy in the face of the almost obscene levels of daily suffering of the commuters:
*Criticism of the subway – Siam Turakij, 18-24 April, 2004
*Siam Turakij and the subway - May 4, 2004
*Subway extensions delayed due to confusion and red tape - Manager Daily, May 9, 2004
*MRTA Governor: "Samrong-Taksin extension speed up plans dim chance to nationalize Skytrain" - translated and summarized by Wisarut Bholsithi from Than Setthakij, April 25-28, 2004
What the hell is the government's agenda? Nationalize mass transit while attempting to privatize EGAT...
BTS has made good efforts to restructure their debt; is profitable now; and has a convincing plan to further boost its income by an extension (Taksin) that can be completed at comparatively low costs due to special circumstances. But still the government interferes and blocks all progress while claiming to try everything to help improve the situation of the local population.
Obviously they want to take over from the private sector and only then push the extensions to be able to boast that it's all their work. (But at the same time refusing to pay at market prices for a profitable - if indebted - company! Being the only one responsible for the delay of the extensions, but blaming BTS instead because they don't want to sell.) “We only want the best for you, the Bangkok people, but the private sector won’t let us!” What they don’t say, of course, is that the private sector has everything to go ahead without the government’s help, but is constantly being sabotaged in its efforts.
Political rivalry (the childish 'vendettas' - due to the association of some mass transit/ construction companies with the Democrat Party) certainly also plays a role.
Or are they actually trying to bog everything down after the nationalization to discredit mass transit systems altogether for the vested interests of the automobile industry? (Contrary to the ambitious 6-year plan which is already running behind schedule now due to the silly political games being played.) Sadly, one cannot dismiss that possibility.
All this brings to mind another silly argument as I once read it in a guidebook published in 1997 where it said 'but many people think the construction works for the subway will only worsen the traffic situation for a considerable time' - so what??? Let's better not build a subway then and wait for the total gridlock? (Maybe General Salang also clings to this view.) One day it had to be started. It should have been started 20 or 30 years ago, of course. But starting today is still better than starting tomorrow. That 'argument' is the same as if a doctor said, 'Well I have a medicine to cure your deadly disease, but it has some side effects.... I think I better shouldn't prescribe it and let you die. This way at least, you won't suffer from the side effects.'
Waiting for Wisarut's comments....... ;) (I always enjoy his colourful political rants...)