Once, perhaps too long ago for the
young and new generation to realize, Bangkok
used to be known as the “Venice of the East.”
Such pride and privilege has long perished due
to the fact that the once dominating mode of
city transport, the water based transport, has
gradually lost its significant role to the road
based transport system. Since the 20th Century,
transport development in Bangkok witnessed a
rapid transformation from water based transport
to road based transport. Most of waterway
networks have been paved over with roads, citing
some widely known streets in the city like Silom
Road, Sathorn Road, Sukhumvit Road, Phloenchit
Road, for example. Since the ancient time,
the Thais of Bangkok used to have their way of
life around the river and canals [2]. In those days,
people preferred to build their houses on stilts
along the riverbanks and in boathouses as
presented in Figure 1 and Figure 2, as mentioned
by Sumet Jumsai, a leading and famous Thai
architect.