A brand new Jomtien intersection unannounced, miracle!

[ronjomtien]

Now you can go on Jomtien second road south to the end and go right on Sukimvit. There is a new traffic light. The only other way now with all the construction is to go right on Chaiyapruek. Before you could only go left, very stupid.

[Gsxrnz]

The intersection mods were under construction for at least a couple of months and "finished" at least two months ago.  It was opened about three weeks ago with much fanfare by the BIB, and during the interim was barricaded off and unusable with orange flashing lights and road cones. Turning south from 2nd Road, or west from Suk (by southbound traffic) was not permitted.  

 

No doubt it will catch a few irregular motorists by surprise, but it was always evident for the last 5 years that eventually this intersection would be opened up for a south turn from 2nd Road and a right turn from Suk.  With luck it will take pressure of Thepprasit, Watboonkanjana, and Chayapruek.  It will also ease traffic on Suk between Chayapruek and Tai. There will no doubt be additional traffic through Jomtien proper, but overall I'd expect this new intersection to be an improvement.

Edited August 18, 2021 by Gsxrnz

[ronjomtien]

Sorry I must have been sleeping during the fanfare as I live at Aeras near the intersection.

[KhunBENQ]

3 hours ago, ronjomtien said:

Sorry I must have been sleeping during the fanfare as I live at Aeras near the intersection.

You are not alone. Not even Google got the fanfare. Still long detour to U-turn shown.

Might mean that navigation tools will still send you through Chaiyaphruek.

[Doctor Tom]

The cry of all transport engineers and theorists, 'if in doubt, install a set of traffic lights'. It always amazes me, and saddens me as well, that when sets of traffic lights go out for any length of time, the traffic flows much easier. One way systems are often a better way to go, the Thais don't seem to understand one way systems at all and yet this area is ripe for that kind of approach.  

Edited August 23, 2021 by Doctor Tom

[Guderian]

I went down to Na Jomtien yesterday, just missed the lights at Chaiyapruek and sat there waiting for them to change for five minutes. Now half a click further on there's another set of lights at the Second Road junction which I also missed, though they changed back to green a lot faster than the ones at Chaiyapruek. Clearly a work in progress then, the Pattaya CIty traffic engineers will have to spend some time on the phasing to make sure there's no chance of them being green if you've just come from the Chaiypruek junction, and to make sure the wait last several minutes at least before you get a green again. Just what Suk didn't need, yet more wretched traffic lights.

[topt]

On 8/23/2021 at 11:18 AM, Doctor Tom said:

the Thais don't seem to understand one way systems at all and yet this area is ripe for that kind of approach.  

2nd Road, Beach Road, Walking Street - sort of...................

[ronjomtien]

On 8/24/2021 at 4:30 PM, Guderian said:

I went down to Na Jomtien yesterday, just missed the lights at Chaiyapruek and sat there waiting for them to change for five minutes. Now half a click further on there's another set of lights at the Second Road junction which I also missed, though they changed back to green a lot faster than the ones at Chaiyapruek. Clearly a work in progress then, the Pattaya CIty traffic engineers will have to spend some time on the phasing to make sure there's no chance of them being green if you've just come from the Chaiypruek junction, and to make sure the wait last several minutes at least before you get a green again. Just what Suk didn't need, yet more wretched traffic lights.

Ridiculous wait times at Pattaya traffic lights. Noticing now many cars just turning when they want, not waiting for any lights or arrows. Maybe covid craziness.

[Doctor Tom]

On 8/25/2021 at 5:14 PM, topt said:

2nd Road, Beach Road, Walking Street - sort of...................

sure, sort of and then they ran out of steam and creative thinking 

[Will B Good]

What about the new motorway from the 7 down to Ban Chang?

 

Does anyone know it is there?

 

I've been up and down it a few times and been the only car for miles and miles.

 

The first time I was worried it wasn't open and I had accidentally got onto it through mixed up roadworks.

[johng]

1 hour ago, Will B Good said:

I've been up and down it a few times and been the only car for miles and miles.

There might be a few more cars on the days they don't charge a tollway fee ?

[Will B Good]

15 minutes ago, johng said:

There might be a few more cars on the days they don't charge a tollway fee ?

Yes. We travelled from BKK and missed the first Rayong turn off, then just came across the new motorway as we were looking for a U turn.

[LongTimeLurker]

On 8/23/2021 at 11:18 AM, Doctor Tom said:

The cry of all transport engineers and theorists, 'if in doubt, install a set of traffic lights'. It always amazes me, and saddens me as well, that when sets of traffic lights go out for any length of time, the traffic flows much easier. One way systems are often a better way to go, the Thais don't seem to understand one way systems at all and yet this area is ripe for that kind of approach.  

Roundabouts are actually a much, much better solution, but only Brits understand how they work so unfortunately in all other countries they cause accidents and congestion.

[LongTimeLurker]

On 8/26/2021 at 2:46 PM, ronjomtien said:

Ridiculous wait times at Pattaya traffic lights. Noticing now many cars just turning when they want, not waiting for any lights or arrows. Maybe covid craziness.

Been that way for the 20+ years I've been in Pattaya.

[ronjomtien]

On 8/26/2021 at 2:46 PM, ronjomtien said:

Ridiculous wait times at Pattaya traffic lights. Noticing now many cars just turning when they want, not waiting for any lights or arrows. Maybe covid craziness.

Speaking of lights, last night in Pratumnak, at least 3 motorbikes now shut the front headlights. It's bad enough at night when I'm driving my car I almost run into the idiots who have no red tail lights. In California they'd ticket you in a flash.

[Kerryd]

53 minutes ago, ronjomtien said:

In California they'd ticket you in a flash.

In California (and many other "Western" countries) they'd actually have police out on patrols instead of spending their whole shift sitting in the station.
In (some) other countries, those Police Boxes would actually have police in them.
In (some) other countries, if you ran a stoplight or stop sign or drove the wrong way down a street or drove on the sidewalk or drove without a (license/registration/insurance) or drove above the speed limit or screamed down the road with straight pipes or (insert a couple dozen other offences here) - the police would nab you almost instantly and there'd be no "slipping a 1000 baht note under your driver's license to get out of getting a ticket business".

Just like "back home" if I got pulled over for (no license/helmet/registration/insurance) my vehicle would be impounded on the spot and towed to an impound yard. None of this "pay a 200 baht ticket" and then drive away and hope you don't get stopped again within a week nonsense.

But This is Thailand and things don't work like they do "back home" so you either have to adjust - or go back home - because things aren't likely to change anytime in the near future.
Unless it's "change for the worse" of course. Which is definitely possible, especially in this region of the world.

[gmac]

On 8/30/2021 at 12:38 PM, LongTimeLurker said:

Roundabouts are actually a much, much better solution, but only Brits understand how they work so unfortunately in all other countries they cause accidents and congestion.

I am now regrettably back in UK and the roundabouts here work beautifully.  I think the only thing I don't miss about Pattaya is the traffic lights.

[KhunBENQ]

On 8/30/2021 at 6:38 PM, LongTimeLurker said:

Roundabouts are actually a much, much better solution

Yes

On 8/30/2021 at 6:38 PM, LongTimeLurker said:

but only Brits understand how they work so unfortunately in all other countries they cause accidents and congestion.

No

[Bruno123]

On 9/1/2021 at 2:40 AM, Kerryd said:

In California (and many other "Western" countries) they'd actually have police out on patrols instead of spending their whole shift sitting in the station.
In (some) other countries, those Police Boxes would actually have police in them.
In (some) other countries, if you ran a stoplight or stop sign or drove the wrong way down a street or drove on the sidewalk or drove without a (license/registration/insurance) or drove above the speed limit or screamed down the road with straight pipes or (insert a couple dozen other offences here) - the police would nab you almost instantly and there'd be no "slipping a 1000 baht note under your driver's license to get out of getting a ticket business".

Just like "back home" if I got pulled over for (no license/helmet/registration/insurance) my vehicle would be impounded on the spot and towed to an impound yard. None of this "pay a 200 baht ticket" and then drive away and hope you don't get stopped again within a week nonsense.

But This is Thailand and things don't work like they do "back home" so you either have to adjust - or go back home - because things aren't likely to change anytime in the near future.
Unless it's "change for the worse" of course. Which is definitely possible, especially in this region of the world.

1000 baht?? Are you sure? ????