Recently, I stumbled upon some old websites talking about traffic problems in Bangkok. Written about 10 years ago, they mentioned how Bangkok had one of the worst traffic problems in the world with unbelievable traffic jams. However, they went on to mention that once the sky train and the underground lines were opened, these traffic jams would become a thing of the past. Fast forward 10 years and, in Bangkok, we’re still talking about how terrible the traffic jams are and how nothing has changed. But why is this?
Bangkok’s government did do a big push to improve public transportation in the 1990s by adding mass transit systems. The sky train opened in Bangkok in 1999, and it is excellent. It reaches only limited areas of the city however and, although expansion has been promised for the last five years, it’s taking a lot longer than was initially planned.