Gridlocked: The sad history and frightening future of Bangkok traffic

In this two part feature series, we investigate Bangkok’s critical traffic problem. 

PART ONE – Thirty-six-year-old Thanisa Chimpleewat arrived in Bangkok only six months ago, but even in that slight interim she has come to grasp one of the city’s fundamental realities: Traffic is bad, and it’s getting worse.

“To travel in Bangkok is no way near pleasant,” she says. “Not only is there the congestion on the road, but taking the BTS can get very uncomfortable as it is always overcrowded.”

When asked why she thinks traffic has reached this sorry state, Thanisa mentions the city’s proliferation of malls and high-rise condominiums, but also places blame on the most visible of Bangkok’s recent transit policies – the “first-car” rebate scheme. Thanks to “first-car,” Thailand has seen an 81% year-on-year increase in automobile purchases, meaning that at this point there are more cars in Bangkok (7.3 million) than there are people in Singapore.

“Even though I’ve lived here for such a short period of time,” says Thanisa, “I can easily tell that so many cars have been added to the road. It has probably increased up to 50%.”

The “first-car” rebate has become a lightning rod for Bangkokian traffic rage in recent months. Its spectacular arrival to Bangkok’s traffic-hatred scene has even allowed it to eclipse some of the other issues plaguing debates about the city’s infrastructure. However, look beyond “first-car” and you’ll find a list of explanations for Bangkok’s traffic nightmare as tortuous and convoluted as the traffic itself.

Thirty-one-year-old motorcycle cab driver Surachai Thankam insists that, “the problem is mainly caused by the traffic police’s inability to control the traffic lights.”

Maj. Suwatchai Khaola-ead, a 49-year-old soldier, points to the city’s inefficient bus system as the cause.

Most recent Bangkok governor MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra is running for a second term on a transportation platform that offers commuters succor in the form of mobile phone apps and a facelift for Victory Monument.

In a debate on which everyone can concede the principle point (that Bangkok’s transportation mix is an utter disaster) why is it so hard to figure out where blame should be apportioned? And, more importantly, what can be done about it?

A tortured history

Any investigation of Bangkok’s current traffic mess has to begin with a look at the city’s transportation history, from which one can divine the roots of commuters’ current frustrations.

It isn’t too far of a stretch to say that ever since there have been cars in Bangkok, there have been traffic problems to go along with them.

The first cars arrived in the city in 1902, at which point Thailand (then Siam) was engaged in a political dance with European powers, trying to invite technology and trade while shunning attempts at political dominance.

Though Bangkok had for centuries relied on canals as its main form of transportation, European traders found this means of transport inefficient, especially when a device as lovely as the motorcar had recently presented itself for widespread consumption.

In response to this demand, Bangkok’s city fathers made a pair of decisions indicative of the gridlocked century to come: They happily adopted Western transportation technology without taking the time to build out the Western-inspired infrastructure necessary to support it.

With little planning or regulation, with much energy and almost no research, Bangkok set about building roads.

Ironically, the city also pioneered another form of mass transit during this period. In 1891 it became the first Southeast Asian city to experiment with public rail transit, which it did in the form of a tramline. However, what could have served as the basis for a progressive, mixed transit system fell by the wayside of history. Bangkokians wanted cars, and the government happily provided roadways on which to drive them.

In a 2003 paper on Bangkok traffic infrastructure, professor Wiroj Rujopakarn of Kasetsart University summed up the problem thus:

“[The early] development period is characterized by the Thai habit of borrowing others’ direct ideas, a habit that has lasted until present,” he writes. “Bangkok has always easily accepted new western technologies without thorough consideration…These foreign ideas and technologies were apparently never analyzed for their appropriateness to the Thai society.”

This haphazard development policy continued well past the 1932 revolution, when an endlessly shifting series of governments made effective city planning all but impossible.

By the time transportation and land use plans for the city were finally developed, Bangkok’s traffic problems had become too heavily entrenched to prove susceptible to even the best-conceived of simple solutions.

Development had gravitated toward the city’s major roads, leaving the sois woefully neglected; car ownership outpaced the rate at which the city could build traffic infrastructure; up to 10 different government agencies (and at least as many private enterprises) oversaw Bangkok’s transport development with little to no coordination.

Transit-bereft “super blocks” developed throughout the city, forcing citizens to spend additional time and money traveling between their houses and Bangkok’s few public transit lines.

Citizens found that the only convenient way to get around was to invest in a car, causing these problems snowball. The government, meanwhile, found itself trapped in constant attempts to play catch-up with the city’s rapidly expanding automobile-owning class.

According to research published by Asian Institute of Technology professor Yordphol Tanaboribon, between 1980 and 1990, the number of registered automobiles in Bangkok rose from a little more than half-a-million to 2,336,531. During that same period, the city’s spending on road infrastructure grew at a similar pace, rising from THB10 billion in 1977 to THB37 billion in 1987.

This expenditure, at best, served only to keep the problem from getting worse. Despite the completion of the BTS, MRT and other major construction projects, Bangkok remains one of the world’s least-efficient major cities when it comes to transportation.

Statistics backing up this common-knowledge assertion aren’t hard to come by.

At present, roads cover 8% of the land area within Bangkok. Compare this to New York City, where roads cover 38% of the land area. Urban designers generally agree that 20% road coverage is necessary in order to effect efficient transport within a city.

Though the BTS and MRT stand out as crown jewel’s of Bangkok’s transportation infrastructure, their existence only serves to highlight the absence of eight other rail lines that were supposed to be added to the city by 2012. Together, these rails were designed to create a city-spanning transportation network similar to those found in other Asian cities.

That goal, however, remains elusive, as Bangkok plays host to a scant 80 kilometers of rail line. Compare that with Seoul, which has 280 kilometers, or Paris, which has 212. New York City: 398.

And it isn’t as if these problems developed in seclusion from the city’s decision makers. Had Bangkok’s development progressed according to plan, the city would now house a public rail system similar to those exemplified by London and Tokyo. Land use and transportations plans are in place that should, by all rights, relieve congestion in Bangkok’s inner city, and press development towards the suburbs.

The real question is why no one is following them.

To read the second half of this two-part series, click here.



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