Phuket Public Transport: Residents need reality U-turn, but beware the tuk-tuks

Will Phuket's beloved tuk-tuks be spreading their wings all the way into the new Bus Terminal? Photo: Gazette file

PHUKET: After 19 months of delay, it's time to break the median strip in front of Phuket Provincial Bus Terminal 2 and finally get the buses rolling from there.

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Despite its ill-advised location, the site is an improvement over that of the blighted current terminal in Phuket Town, an area which long ago lost any claim to being a geographical hub.

We find it hard to understand the resistance to the Terminal 2 project by some of the local residents in Rassada. We appreciate their displeasure at not having been invited to public hearings, but the presence of the new bus station there should not do much to damage the local landscape.

The roadway is already lined with numerous repair shops, an electrical power substation, the tatty Super Cheap complex, gas stations, massage parlors, derelict shop houses and other installations of similar aesthetic merit.

If, as some have claimed, the argument really is about increased traffic, residents should consider that all inter-provincial buses already pass their doors, 24 hours a day enroute to and from Phuket Town. Having the buses stationed there should not be seen as much of a threat to the neighborhood. It is likely, in fact, to improve northbound traffic flow at key junctions further south in Rassada.

As mentioned in this space before, a much better location for the new station would have been at the point where the bypass road forks off from Thepkrasattri Road. This would have provided convenience to passengers transiting to west and south coast destinations, especially if the much-talked-about light rail system were ever to become a reality.

Nevertheless, it always seems to be the residents of Phuket Town, not tourists, who reap the benefits from government projects. Phuket Town has a reliable public water supply, expansive parks, cheap and reliable public transport and an ongoing project to bury power cables.

Consider similar infrastructure in places such as Patong or Kata-Karon, and the contrast is stark indeed.

Moving the bus station to Rassada can be viewed as “more of the same”. If and when it opens, Phuket Town residents will see their roads freed of the lumbering buses while enjoying easy 10-baht access to the new station on the pink Poh Thong buses.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are tourists arriving from other provinces, who will of course be left to the demands of whatever transport syndicate is first to buy the franchise, almost surely to be exclusive, at the new terminal.

Given the massive profits reaped from such black-plate taxi and tuk-tuk franchises, it is hard to believe that local Rassada folk are not chomping at the bit to have the station open as soon as possible so that they can line up at the feeding trough.

After all, there has been no talk whatsoever of providing anyone arriving at the terminal with a shuttle bus from there to Patong.

-- Phuket Gazette 2011-06-19

A few months ago I tried to get a tuk tuk to take my gf and I from the Phuket Town bus station to the local bus station across town, but drivers refused to take us. All the drivers said they would only take us all the way to Kata for 500B.

Will the new system be as woefully inadequate?

A few months ago I tried to get a tuk tuk to take my gf and I from the Phuket Town bus station to the local bus station across town, but drivers refused to take us. All the drivers said they would only take us all the way to Kata for 500B.

Will the new system be as woefully inadequate?

Ideally the pink buses should serve this route.

A few months ago I tried to get a tuk tuk to take my gf and I from the Phuket Town bus station to the local bus station across town, but drivers refused to take us. All the drivers said they would only take us all the way to Kata for 500B.

Will the new system be as woefully inadequate?

Ideally the pink buses should serve this route.

Yeah I wasn't sure if there was a bus route so I looked around for signage or a map and asked the officials at the information office (the bus station is run by local government) and they said tuk tuk was the only option.

so this means that no inter-provincial Buses will leave from the old terminal anymore ?

subsequently, can not take a local Bus or SawngThaew from Patong / Karon / Kata / Kamala to the old Bus-Station where a seamless transfer to an interprovincial Bus was possible ?