Bangkok's New Bicycle Stations to Beat Congestion

[Guest fountainhall]

So, from October 28 Bangkok is going to set up 50 stations with a total of 330 bicycles to help ease traffic congestion. Bicycles are free for the first 10 minutes, Bt. 10 for the next 45 minutes, and then Bt. 20 for the following three hours.

 

That’s “bicycles” – not motocys. Good idea, as it works in some other cities around the world. Bad idea, as Bangkok’s traffic with drivers constantly chatting on their mobile phones behind their blacked out windows and paying little heed either to speed limits or to traffic lanes is notorious.

 

Aha! But the city already has bicycle lanes on some of its roads! Indeed, it does, but how many cyclists do you see on them? Very few! Because traffic continuously encroaches upon them.

 

See me on a bicycle in this city? Only if I want a quick trip to the mortuary!

 

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/City-set-to-launch-bike-rentals-30192906.html

[TotallyOz]

I think this is a great idea but agree with you that the traffic in Bangkok is pretty dangerous. I have ridden in Bangkok many times and even on a trip from Chiang Mai to Phuket and the only day I felt scarred for my life was in Bangkok and there were several hundred riders that day. Still we had big trucks in and out of us and the madness was crazy.

 

I do know of many groups that do bike tours of the city and friends who have been on these rides loved them but I don't think those rides are for the beginning riders.

 

However, I give them props for making a step in the right direction.

[Guest fountainhall]

The other issue is: who will use these bikes? Car owners? I don't believe that for one moment! A few hundred bikes may tempt some away from public transport, but not their cars!

[Guest thaiworthy]

The other issue is: who will use these bikes? Car owners? I don't believe that for one moment! A few hundred bikes may tempt some away from public transport, but not their cars!

 

Also, they will ride on the sidewalks the way motorcycles sometimes do now. Illegal, but that never stopped anybody.

[ChristianPFC]

In the article quoted, they refer to Velib in Paris. I saw these, but never used one. But conditions in Paris are different from Bangkok. They are successful in Paris, but you can't transplant the system to Bangkok.

 

And bicyles need some maintenance.

 

There simply is no space for bicycles in Bangkok. On the road, it's too dangerous, on the sidewalk (I don't know where to start why you can't go by bicylce on the sidewalk). You would need lanes that are separate (so cars can't get on them, like the bus system in South Sathorn), but these lanes will be used by motorcyles and pedestrians and vendors.

 

There was a free bicycle service for tourists (Bangkok Smile Bike, bicyle rental plus map with recommendet tour) around the Royal Palace area (I used it and wrote a report in 2011), sadly, on my last holiday in September all stations I saw were abandoned.

[Guest fountainhall]

Some Bangkok roads do have bicycle tracks at the side marked with a red broken line (not on the pavements). Sathorn certainly has them. But on the few times I have seen cyclists, they usually ride up in the wrong direction! When there are no cyclists, traffic automatically veers into them.

[ChristianPFC]

This bike service has a website: http://www.punpunbikeshare.com/ (note that the two words pun pun are spelled and pronounced slightly differnt in Thai).

 

I saw some bikes when I drove past in a taxi at their station in Siam Square. The station in Sam Yan however, has been unchanged (and is still under construction) for months. I am pretty sure I saw poles to lock the bikes there in February, then they were gone, then they were there again, and gone again. I had the impression that part of the roof has been taken away (right next to that station is the bus stop from which I occasionally drive back to my place).

 

I would say the whole project is a stillbirth (do you use stillbirth in a figurative sense, for something that is doomed from the very beginning?).

[Guest fountainhall]

It seems not even the motorcycles can beat some of the traffic. For a couple of months when the Belgian Bridge was being resurfaced (something that would have taken a couple of week-ends in other countries), traffic was at a crawl on much of Rama 4 in both directions.

 

For the last couple of days, for whatever reason traffic on Silom has been gridlocked from 3:00pm onwards at least between Rama 4 and Chongnonsri. It hardly moves and there are long tailbacks on Rama 4 and Rajadamri. Around 4:30pm today, it took 13 minutes to get from Saladaeng to Soi Convent - a distance of about 250 meters! I have never known it this bad - and there was no rain in sight!

[Guest]

As a form of transport, walking is seriously under rated. 

 

They should extend the Skytrain into places like China town and after that encourage people to walk the last mile of their trip.

[Guest Devint6669]

Driving bicycle in Bangkok!

This doesn't sound like a great idea when you realize that nobody have a real education about cycling the in city. Before you can establish this system to the city of Bangkok, you must have a real system first. As I encounter many times before in the past bicycle don't stay on the cycle lane, there should be Enable from crossing out of the bicycle lane because their will be causing more traffic.

Some of the changes to be taking first.

1) A real education in school about how to drive a bicycle, not just one time but each year there are in elementary school. When they get to high school take the kids to pass a driving license, that will make them understand what it is to drive a bicycle in the city.

2) also providing free parking area for the bicycle user, this way it will encourage to actual driver to make the change to switch from car to bicycle save time in the traffic, it will seam to be a better idea if you give them the proper structure.

3) Make the downtown area with pay-told  that would discourage driver to bring their car in the downtown but keep the taxi as free to pass in those street because a downtown with no taxi it would not be very pleasant for the normal tourist.

4) Make the bicycle easy to access it anywhere, the multiple bicycle that would be added to the street will need to have a proper lave setup for that the motorbike wont be able to get on them, for it does not drive the bicycle of the road on to the side walk.

5) It would need a bicycles Police force that would make sure that everything is working properly… That the street vendor are not taking over bicycle lane, that the Motorbike are in the street and the Law are being Follow.

As we all know this will not happened this mean this project will fall in the river, like many done when down the drain in the past… Thailand is not ready for this kind of change this is what i got say!

[Guest fountainhall]

Devint brings up a number of interesting points, though as he suggests, they won't be viable in Bangkok for a variety of reasons.

 

As has been noted in another thread, the driving test in Thailand is pathetic. Education about road safety at school level and much higher standards of tests for all road users could certainly help. As would higher penalties for breaking the rules. But with corruption so widespread, the chances of that happening are zero.

 

A toll system like Singapore and London was first developed in Hong Kong in the early 1980s and sensors were actually built into the roads. It was killed by the big tycoons who complained to the government that it would restrict their freedoms (ie. their freedoms to visit their mistresses and second wives without their first wives knowing about it).

 

But the main argument against it will no doubt be that the rich and the elite will easily afford the tolls, whereas the average car user won't. So it discriminates in favour of the rich.

 

Sadly, I don't see any way traffic jams will ease - the more so given the extra million or so cars that are now on the roads thanks to the government's sweetheart deal with the car makers following the floods of 2011. Successive BMA governors have said they will tackle the traffic issue - and what gets done? Well, a dedicated closed bus lane along Naritiwat for one, I suppose. But all that achieves is a few minutes of time saved on buses (which only use the lane once every five minutes) until they reach Rama 3, whilst the increased number of cars and other road users have one lane less in each direction. Result - more traffic chaos!

 

Ah, if one could only comprehend Thai logic!

[fedssocr]

Does the climate there lend itself to bike riding? Bike share has been very popular here in Washington. And I know the program in Montreal has been quite successful too. But it's only 100 degrees here a few days out of the year. But given Bangkok's traffic and weather conditions I can't imagine this project has much chance to succeed.

[PattayaMale]

I wonder if the concept would work in a tourist town like Pattaya? I believe it has no possible chance with all the motorbike, taxi, and baht bus owned "business owners" who would probably oppose it. But the concept is interesting to me.

 

[Guest Promsak]

There simply is no space for bicycles in Bangkok. On the road, it's too dangerous, on the sidewalk (I don't know where to start why you can't go by bicylce on the sidewalk).

 

 

Here, on Sukhumvit (Bangkok), there are bicycle lanes clearly marked on the pavement (sidewalk to some)!

There is hardly any room for pedestrians.

I've seen very few bicycles using the lane but many motorcycle taxis who seem to think that the stencilled figure, clearly a pedal bike indicating who can use the lane, means them and them only.

Another harebrained scheme possibly thought up by some local politician with a job lot of white paint to sell :-)