A few suggestions on easing Bangkok traffic

Granted, that’s par for the course for politicians everywhere. However, one of his promises; to end Bangkok’s gridlocked traffic, was a particularly insidious one because he didn’t do anything to back up his claim. I’m not running for office, but have a couple suggestions which would ease Bangkok traffic. Both suggestions relate to moving cars quicker through intersections, where bottlenecks are exacerbated. Neither suggestion would cost much to implement.

_ Wherever possible, implement right-turn traffic lanes with designated arrow lights. Current intersection configuration allows for only one lane out of four to move at any one time. Right-turn lanes would enable two opposing lanes to move straight through concurrently. In each cyle, arrow lights would also allow some time for just right turns from the turn lanes, also concurrently, from opposing directions. Nearly twice as much traffic could move through intersections, using this configuration. 

_ We have all experienced drawn out times when no vehicles go through an intersection. Many hours per week, drivers are stuck at red lights, while no cars are coming through the one green light lane. That’s because many traffic light cycles are too long. Instead of setting some cycles at a 160 seconds, for example, set them at 100 seconds. In each 24-hour period, that would add up to nine cumulative hours, where halted cars would not have to stare at an empty intersection spewing smog in to the city air.

Ken Albertsen

Chiang Rai