About 500 members of the Ban Krua area Muslim community in Bangkok rallied at their local mosque yesterday Jan. 16 to oppose an expressway section that will cut through their neighborhood and isolate it from city roads.
Transport Minister Sukumpol Suwanatat intends to revive a plan to install a 2.8km exit from the Bang Khlo- Chaeng Watthana expressway that has been stalled since 1998, The Bangkok Post reported. The exit ramp would run along Khlong Saen Saep from the Urupong area to Ratchadamri road and slice through the Bang Krua area, which is by the canal.
Bang Krua residents, who successfully protested against the project in 1998, said they would block staff from the Expressway Authority of Thailand (Exat) from entering and surveying their community. Surveying would meant the beginning of the expropriation process, they said.
Poramet Phuto, a Ban Krua leader, said that Exat hadn’t provided solid reasons to build the ramp at two past public hearings. The leader of the past public hearings had decided that the ramp wouldn’t benefit the public and thus shouldn’t be built, he said.
