Thai high-speed railway pie in the sky
Re: “Thailand behind the curve on public transport”, Letters, February 18.
Burin Kantabutra recommends “shifting our long-haul transit from roads to high-speed, dual-track railway, thus lowering costs”. How I do wish that would happen. There has been much official talk about making this shift over the years, but it has always fizzled out. The latest talk is that it might only be a single-track, standard-gauge railway in order to keep costs down. I suppose even that would be better than nothing, but I’m not holding my breath.
Burin also suggests that “fines for traffic offences should double each time a given driver breaks the law in a given year”. What a novel idea! I don’t know if other countries practise this, but it seems a very good suggestion.
A little more puzzling is Burin’s idea for Bangkok to do as the Romans: “In Rome, cars can be parked only in the district where the owner resides. Otherwise they will be towed.” Is he referring to permanent overnight parking? Otherwise there would be little point in owning a car if you weren’t allowed to park anywhere else at all!
Ewan
