News Forum - Bangkok’s new governor requests a year to study traffic solutions for the city

[Thaiger]

Bangkok’s newly elected governor has requested a year to study how best to solve the city’s traffic problems. In a meeting with metropolitan police today, Governor Chadchart Sittipunt outlined plans to set up a traffic command centre, which will cooperate with several other institutions. These include traffic police, the Transport Ministry, the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority, the metro system, and the Expressway and Rapid Transit Authority. The plan is for these institutions to cooperate to centralise traffic management in Bangkok. Chadchart pointed out that right now, as many as 37 agencies manage traffic without coordinating well with each other. He […]

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[palooka]

as many as 37 agencies manage traffic without coordinating well with each other.

No wonder it is a mess, 2 agencies cannot get it together let alone 37.

[TheDirtyDurian]

Only a year?? 

[Soidog]

This guy is making all the right sounds at the moment. He’s certainly not looking to go for any quick wins in going after easing traffic congestion. I wish him luck, but it won’t be easy.

[Scribble]

Chadchart was down at Tha Pra junction himself seeing how the access could be widened while the tunnelling roadworks are being done. Seems very hands on and seems to genuinely want to help. Such a refreshing change from the usual fantasy statements like "zero road deaths" coming from Pnut.

All the best to him.

[Scribble]

It took a pandemic to solve Bangkok's traffic. Schools closed, people working from home, lots of places shut, people out of work returning to home provinces. I'd started to forget how bad it was before.

Since after Songkran with the schools back and things returning to normal the traffic has gone back to level horrendous.

[tezzaaa]

Not sure what he wants to study, he could look at other cities around the world, he would realise that the best answer is a working transport system and charging cars for entering the city..

[Fanta]

37 departments means a lot of people are employed to do this work. Centralizing this control means a lot of those people need to change their working ways and people do not like to do that. The pushback from those directly effected will be considerable, either openly or covertly. 
This guy doesn’t have a big enough budget to fix the problem, let alone the backing to implement the required changes for a possible solution. He is just buying time. 

[Prosaap]

Well you have to start somewhere its not a bad idea to make one institution in charge but this is thailand if you give 1 institution to much power they will find a way to abuse it i sure belief he have good intentions but its hard to accomplish something if everybody work against you lets hope he get something done for a change

[DiJoDavO]

Make space for parking lots, stop people from parking their car in a lane where people drive. That will stop cars from having to turn to the other lanes, which mostly stops all traffic. 

Uturn bridges and tunnels would also not be a bad idea. 

Sometimes you're waiting in a traffic jam for an hour, then out of nowhere you reach a point where everyone is suddenly just driving again. And you'll be left wondering why everyone was blocked by nothing. I guess that's mostly just because of parking and uturns. 

[Augratin]

  On 6/9/2022 at 2:15 AM, DiJoDavO said:

Make space for parking lots

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Where is this space going to come from?  Even if you can manage to create a handful of parking spaces behind a business, nobody will use them or they'll become trash dumping spots.  Create parking spaces on the side of the street and food vendors will set up shop in them.

The best solution is to get cars off the road.  Make Bangkok less of a car-dependant city.

[Prosaap]

Make them wait behind the white line not block half a lane if they come from a side street and if the lane from there direction is full not start drive and block the other lane wile wait most chaos they create them self 

[Soidog]

  On 6/9/2022 at 11:36 AM, Prosaap said:

Make them wait behind the white line not block half a lane if they come from a side street and if the lane from there direction is full not start drive and block the other lane wile wait most chaos they create them self 

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Yes, a key issue is lack of courtesy on the Thai roads. Where I come from, if someone flashes their lights it’s a way of saying “after you”. In Thailand it means “get out of my way I’m stopping for no one”. Until this attitude that the road is a jungle stops, then nothing will change. 
 

Blocking side roads or not letting people filter in to the main traffic just slows everyone down. Including the selfish people who do it.  

[Guest1]

  On 6/8/2022 at 3:36 PM, TheDirtyDurian said:

Only a year?? 

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But did not specify, if that is the first, second, ..., year of him being in office, methinks. ;-)

[Leo]

And what to do with the sidewalks.....2 years for that.

As some others noted, he can follow the examples of other cities that have already done it. Start by cutting the number of cars with only the driver and no passengers, which in central BKK might be up to 80%.

[Soidog]

  On 6/9/2022 at 6:46 PM, Leo said:

As some others noted, he can follow the examples of other cities that have already done it

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That would be a first Leo. Absolutely the right thing to do. It’s called looking for best practice. However, bringing such “foreign ideas” in and claiming they will work in Thailand is regarded at treason. You see, Thailand is a special and unique place where the laws of physics to the rest of the universe simply don’t apply. I would think consultation with a monk will be the best way forward.