An open letter to the transport minister
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Dear Khun Chadchart, I was most impressed by your efforts this month to experience first-hand what the average Joe has to put up with to get around the capital and the country. Well done! I was even more impressed when I read, subsequent to your train jou
But to capitalise on your enthusiasm, I propose another mission. Leave Bangkok – not by chauffeur-driven limo with a police escort – by Phra Pinklao, follow elevated Route 338 and turn left on Kanchanaphisek Road West – commonly known as the bypass. Then drive south to the junction with Rama II, where you turn west towards Samut Songkhram.
This junction was not fit for its purpose when constructed some years ago to a design by a contortionist with a knitting fixation. Later, when some high-paid consultant determined that the toll station should be situated within 300 metres of this, the busiest road junction in the Kingdom, mere inconvenience led to nail-biting frustration for everyone regardless of the direction they were travelling.
Add a million cars from the first-car-buyer scheme and an almost permanent logjam around this junction was assured. But you will eventually negotiate this, and need only drive as far as Porto Chino at Km 25, where you can relax with a Paracetamol and a coffee before returning. But don’t pick up the police escort just yet.
The excitement of the outward journey needs to be tempered by experiencing the “Amazing Junction” on the way back. Even if police haven’t set up a vehicle check, the queue to get on to the bypass usually extends for some distance.
But, assuming you survive the ducking and weaving by drivers in the right-hand lane trying to cross at the last minute to the bypass, you then have a 10km scenic drive to the toll booths at the end of Rama II, which shouldn’t take you more than half an hour. You are now only left to negotiate the booths, recently hit by the “improved” placing of extra Easy Pass lanes, and the exhilarating climb up the Rama IX Bridge, before you duck down into the capital – but you already know this bit.
I look forward to reading about your experience and if the big boss at roads isn’t summoned, I shall be surprised.
But it might be an idea to extend the timeframe for him to sort out the mess – say five years – by which time you should be safely out of office and it will be someone else’s problem. Good luck!
Johnny Thoyts
Pranburi
