Raise funds to build a complete BTS
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Instead of covering just a few kilometres of the capital, how about increasing petrol tax to fund an integrated BTS system that covers every major street?
For instance, if a litre of petrol costs B100, instead of today’s average of Bt40, the city will be able to raise Bt600 million per day assuming a million vehicles use an average of 10 litres each. That works out to roughly Bt18 billion a month, Bt216 billion a year and more than Bt1 trillion in five years.
An obvious side effect, of course, will be that fewer car owners will go on the streets, which would be a welcome change for those who really need to drive as they will spend less time on the street and, ironically, less petrol. Who knows, at the end of the day, their petrol costs might work out to be even lower than before.
Andy Colmes
Bangkok
