Buzz’s Journal: Bangkok Has One of the Top 10 Monster Traffic Jams

Although I snapped this photo on a Friday at 17.30 at one of Bangkok’s major intersections, admittedly an extremely busy time, date and place, this scene is duplicated throughout the city at most times of the day or night.

Bangkok, Thailand.  November 1, 2013.  It should not come as any surprise to Bangkokians, that the BBC recently categorized Bangkok traffic as one of the 10 monster traffic jams of the world.  Everyone, including I, has a story of being stuck in traffic for hours, most of which time is spent not moving at all, and sometimes ultimately abandoning the car, bus or taxi to walk instead, or just give up.  After one flight from Singapore, it took me longer to get from the Bangkok airport to my condo, than it did for me to travel from my Singapore hotel to the landing in Bangkok; in other words, by far the longest part of the journey was spent sitting in a cab in the Bangkok traffic.

Everyone has their reasons of why this is so.  One way or another, it is the sheer numbers of cars in a Bangkok that cannot accommodate them.  To make matters worse, car ownership is increasing at an alarming rate.  On purpose, I live in the CBD within a short walking distance of two Skytrain (elevated railway) stations.  Bangkok has a wonderful and modern system an elevated railway and an underground, but in this vast metropolis, it covers only 78km (48 miles) of track.  Supposedly, there are plans to increase that to 400km by 2020, but I doubt anyone thinks this will happen.  In the meantime, on those few occasions that I have to take to the city roads in either a bus (of which there are 7,500 carrying one million passengers a day, the most popular form of transportation) or in a taxi, my most important defensive weapon is my iPod loaded with an audio book.