Thaksin To Spend $17b To Fight Bangkok's Jams

[george]

The three-stage plan involves enforcing traffic rules, building more roads and extending the mass rapid transit system

BANGKOK - Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has laid out an ambitious 400 billion baht (S$17.3 billion) plan to solve Bangkok's traffic woes - and pledged that he would succeed this time around.

With his target-oriented CEO style, he may yet solve a problem that Bangkok has struggled with, off and on, for close to 20 years.

Mr Thaksin, after chairing a meeting on the issue, signalled on Monday that he would brook no opposition to the three-stage plan. It will first enforce traffic rules, then extend the road network and finally extend the mass rapid transit system - a project to be completed by 2009.

To speed up the process of road construction, the government will drop the lengthy bidding contest in favour of quick direct negotiations with contractors under the supervision of Deputy Prime Minister Visanu Krue-ngarm.

'Social and economic damage caused by traffic problems are too huge for us to wait for lengthy bidding contests that may save only a negligible amount of money,' Mr Thaksin said.

'I have given orders today that we will not think about the interest of the state or the private sector. The investment will be for the public interest. We will work for the people's convenience.

'Roads must serve as many people as they can. If the investment troubles any parties, let me know and I will solve their problems.'

With Thailand's economy growing vigorously and consumer confidence booming, cars are returning to the streets of Bangkok in droves.

As a result, the pollution-free streets of the slump years from 1998 to 2000 - during which traffic was also alleviated by new expressways and a mass rapid transit system in 1999 - are once again a thing of the past.

Attempts to sort out traffic problems by dramatically enhancing infrastructure succeeded only partially in the mid-1990s because the crash of 1997 to 1998 brought many projects to an abrupt halt.

The government will pay most of the 400 billion baht traffic improvement bill.

Some 60 billion baht will be spent on road improvements and the building of flyovers, shortcuts and new road links.

The plan for the expansion of the rapid transit railway will see 296km added to the network at a cost of 270 billion baht.

The immediate focus is on traffic management, traffic law enforcement and the eradication of traffic bottlenecks, which the Bangkok Post said should yield results within a year.

Metropolitan police commissioner, Lieutenant-General Tani Somboonsap, said the Premier ordered senior traffic officers to supervise their subordinates on the spot during rush hour.

'They can no longer leave it all to junior traffic police,' The Nation quoted him as saying.

One analyst and Bangkok resident said: 'The Prime Minister cleverly said this plan would be for the people. That is good politics. And if he remains in power, as it seems he will, for the next six years he will make it happen.'

--Agents 2003-11-26