Pattaya's Traffic Mayhem Threatens Tourism: City Battles for Solution

[Mason45]

On 11/22/2024 at 9:37 AM, newnative said:

     I'm not seeing much 'battle' in the very weak response from the city.  This is the best they can come up with?  Pathetic.  Really just same-o same-o.  More traffic enforcement--as if that will work.  And, as always, no concrete, specific proposals.  Just glittering generalities.  This agency will work with that agency, blah, blah, blah.

    One of the big bottlenecks is in front of Central Festival--both sides.  On the beach side there's a large police station right next to the mall.  Usually just one or two cops out helping beachgoers crossing the street by the crosswalk--while completely ignoring the bad  traffic bottleneck by the mall right next to them.  One immediate help would be to eliminate parking on both sides for stretches at both mall entrances to help thru traffic get by both congested areas--and enforce the no-parking with stiff fines and police presence when the mall is open.

     Going to 'battle' would involve eliminating parking on major roads, opening up an extra lane immediately to allow more cars to get through the extremely long traffic cycles at busy intersections.  

    Going to battle would involve hiring an entirely new traffic ticketing crew to ticket illegal parking with stiff fines--with a percentage of the fines collected going directly to the enforcement staff.   

   Going to battle would involve getting road construction projects done much more quickly, with much more direct supervision and coordination of the work by the city.  How many stories have we read of the deputy mayor or mayor dragging himself out to 'inspect' why a project is 6 months or a year behind schedule?  Some hand-wringing, a few meaningless promises, and, that's that.  

    Going to battle would involve getting massive new projects started to construct either underpasses or overpasses for the major Sukhumvit intersections--as has been done to the south and to the north by Sri Racha.  Only one of the 3 proposed underpasses was ever constructed.  Why?  The city didn't 'battle' for them.

    Going to battle would involve looking at major traffic intersections with an eye to improvement.  For example, the right turn from North Pattaya Road on to Sukhumvit could be re-striped to allow 3 lanes to turn right, rather than just two--cars are already doing that now, taking things into their own hands.  

    Speaking of that intersection, perhaps someone could inform the city that the traffic light on the North Pattaya/Sukhumvit intersection is messed up.  When the North Pattaya light is red, it gives a green left turn arrow--which is wrongly sending the cars turning left directly into the Sukhumvit traffic going north.  There should only be a green arrow if that traffic is stopped.  When the light is green for North Pattaya road drivers to turn right, the left turn arrow turns red, when, of course, it should be green since the north-bound Sukhumvit traffic is stopped.  

    It's been a couple of days since I have been thru the intersection and, perhaps, it has been fixed by now but the fact it has been this way for months and no Pattaya officials have noticed--even though City Hall is on that road--is an indication of how lightly interested they are in traffic safety and improvements.  

Cars doing illegal U turns at that right turn doesn't help either.