Bangkok's Metamorphosis into Paradise

[Guest fountainhall]

This is the headline in an article in today’s Bangkok Post. Intriguing, because there are not that many major cities anywhere that look less like paradise at the present time. It turns out that this was a vision of the King in a speech made in 1994. So now, more than 17 years, a gazillion motor vehicles, increased pollution and goodness knows what else later, someone in City Hall has decided the time is right to bring it back on to the front burner.

 

Apparently, a consulting firm was engaged earlier this year, and a committee of some 80 experts in various fields has been set up to draft the frameworks and regulations for implementing the project.

 

The project overall is built on the concept of "Green Networks", "Green Nodes", and a "Green District".

 

The three "greens" will involve improving road infrastructure, adding trees along the boulevards and in empty plots, reducing traffic jams, constructing a waste water treatment plant and integrating a mass transit network.

 

The three green segments will be implemented on a pilot basis in different locations of the capital.

 

The Green Networks are networks of roads that will look greener.

 

The Green Nodes are clusters of green landscapes and the Green District is a group of historic towns.

 

Initially, more than 300 areas were chosen for the pilot phase of the project. Of this number, 250 areas fit in the Green Networks, 65 in the Green Nodes, and four in the Green District.

 

The first pilot group is the 45km long Ratchadaphisek Ring Road that consists of several roads including Charan Sanitwong Road, Pracha Chuen Road, Ratchadaphisek Road, Asok-Montri Road, and Rama III Road . . . In the second group of pilot areas, Bueng Rama 9 will serve as a centre for royal projects including a wastewater treatment plant and a medical centre.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/254773/bangkok-metamorphosis-into-paradise

 

So, we will have 'Green Networks', 'Green Nodes' (which I must admit I first read as Green Noodles!) and a 'Green District'. I wonder if all this will be completed before Bangkok continues to sink much more and truly becomes the Venice of the East under a Green Sea.

[Guest]

I wonder how they intend to reduce traffic jams? Improving roads often means more cars.

 

Some form of road pricing would make sense.

 

Also, they need a tax regime that punishes people for buying these heavy square pickups and encourages them to get an efficient little 1.2 litre hatchback instead. That means less pollution and less pain when oil eventually hits $200 a barrel.

 

As for public transport, well the Skytrain & MTS seem well run. All they need to do is extend the networks and have a common ticketing system.

The pollution from those old buses needs fixing.

Also, the state railway network seems to be a basket case, so perhaps it needs to be sold off to someone who can run it properly.

[Guest fountainhall]

As for public transport, well the Skytrain & MTS seem well run. All they need to do is extend the networks and have a common ticketing system

Well, in Bangkok extending systems and continuing to run well don't often go hand in hand, alas! Remember the extension of the Silom line over the river to Wong Wian Yai? Great, except somehow the computers could not work out how to phase trains because of the single line track at Saphan Taksin! I lost track of the number of times trains came to a dead halt before Surasak - sometimes for as much as 5 minutes!

 

Now that problem seems to have been solved, there's another. The Sukhumvit line now extends beyond On Nut. Great! Did anyone in the BTS management consider that extending the line means more passengers - a lot more passengers? Nope! Did any one consider that this requires more trains or the existing ones will take longer to cover the longer track, meaning that time between trains will also lengthen? Nope! Did anyone consider putting on more carriages - as has finally happened on the Silom line? Nope!

 

So when I tried to board an incoming train at Ploenchit at around 2:30 pm on Thursday, I had almost to fight my way on board. It was as packed as at rush hour! Yesterday I was at Phayathai station at about the same time. Not many from the airport link City Line were struggling with their cases, but you could almost hear the groans of those who made it to the platform as one packed train after another opened its doors. And at the Siam interchange yesterday around 6:00 pm - not even a week-day - the queues for the eastward Sukhumvit trains were stretching beyond the middle of the platform!

 

The question has been asked before – many times! Why on earth do senior managers in this country not have the ability to think ahead and work out the consequences of actions, instead of merely how to complete each action one at a time and only then moving on to the next one? If anyone doubts the validity of that comment, just look at the fast AIrport Link disaster! Enough said! “I don’t get it!”

[Guest]

I haven't experienced the BTS system since they extended past On Nut.

 

Not providing additional trains to cover the longer route seems like a major omission.

 

As for poor decisions, well I keep reading about corruption and nepotism in Thailand. If people are appointed for the wrong reasons, the result will be inferior managers and poor decisions.

[Rogie]

The question has been asked before

[Guest fountainhall]

So, what happens in Thailand?

My thought is that it is little to do with how much managers are paid and far more with the structure of society and cultural norms. There is a deep respect for elders in Thai society, a culture which spreads into the corporate sector and which seems rarely to question – to approach problems not by tackling them ‘head-on’ but by running away or conveniently laying them aside for others to deal with.

 

In the small amount of business I have done with Thai managers in recent years, confrontation over a business issue rarely achieves a result. The Thai will come up with all sorts of comments – “I am too tired”, “I cannot look at this today”, “This is all giving me a bad headache” – and so the issue is put on the back burner.

 

The end result is that someone from on high has to give the orders. But those at the top cannot be expected consistently to micromanage. So certain things just do not get done, and I suspect that this has probably developed into a culture of tackling “one thing at a time”. It would certainly explain why extra Skytrain track is opened before anyone thinks about extra passenger loads and how to handle them. Equally, it would explain why, when the MRT opened some years ago, not one station had any billboard or other advertising. Indeed, even today, the MRT could be making a great deal more money by filling more station space with advertising. In Hong Kong and Singapore, contracts for many such advertising slots were signed well before stations even opened for business!

 

Additionally, there seems to be a fear of making a mistake – of ‘losing face’, and ‘face’ is as vital to the smooth running of Thai society as it is anywhere else in Asia – even more so, some might argue.

 

Yet these cannot be the only answers, for there are indeed some Thai companies which are extremely successful. Is it perhaps also something more confined to companies which have to deal largely with government departments falling into the sloth of government inefficiency?

[Rogie]

Yet these cannot be the only answers, for there are indeed some Thai companies which are extremely successful. Is it perhaps also something more confined to companies which have to deal largely with government departments falling into the sloth of government inefficiency?

Thailand has some very wealthy people.

 

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