Bangkok's traffic situation is desperate. And yet the problem has never been properly analyzed. The current chaos is an inescapable result of an endless hodgepodge of half-measures, wrong measures, and no measures. Expanding existing roads, for example, merely causes further congestion due to messy, obstacle-course construction that hurts at least as much as it helps. It also encourages people to put more cars on the roads.
Proposals on how to improve Bangkok's traffic problems continue to abound: a subway system, a sky train, and a waterway system. Viable alternatives to cars and motorbikes must be provided; experts are needed, as are more traffic data, funds and a coordinated intergovernmental master plan.