San Patong Bypass Highway

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Thought I'd share the plans (and progress) of the Sanpatong bypass road that's currently under construction. The new road means that traffic to/from points South of town in the direction of Doi Inthanon, Hot, Doi Tao and Mae Hong Son (via the Southern loop) won't have to crawl straight through Sanpatong and Hang Dong but will connect to the (widened) Canal Road instead.

It's going to be a proper 4 lane highway (separate lanes), with a tunnel under the 1013 to Mae Wang.

The part currenlty under active construction is between the 108 South of Sanpatong and the current end of the Canal Road near Namborluang. This is scheduled to complete near the end of next year. (This is the double red line in the image below)

The next step after that is turning the Canal Road in a separate lane highway for the full length. (Pink dotted line above).

More information is on the Department of Rural Roads site (http://road.drr.go.th/underpass_cm/Sunpatong2/sun-dt-004-2.htm) but there is also a dedicated Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/bypasssanpatong), and a dedicated website (http://www.bypasssanpatong.com ) For convenience this is one of the pages run through Google translate: http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?act=url&depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=th&tl=en&u=http://www.bypasssanpatong.com/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26view%3Darticle%26id%3D3%26Itemid%3D3&usg=ALkJrhj8APWWfRY1RzdnM-9R4Zt8SWOfCw

[WinnieTheKhwai]

My comment: yes this will lighten the traffic through Sanpatong and Hang Dong. However it will put a lot more traffic through the Canal Road, which likely means new bottle necks at the intersection with the Samoeng Road at Nong Khwai (unless there's going to be a flyover there) and perhaps -to a lesser extent- all other intersections on the Canal Road, of which there are quite a few: Ratchapruek Road, Middle Ring near Mae Hia Market and ultimately the Payom intersection with Suthep Road. The flip side of that of course is that this reduces load on a similar number of intersections on the Hang Dong road, potentially all the way to Airport Plaza.

It may also be good for new development along the Canal Road.

[highonthai]

Looks good, I feel sorry for the people along the proposed "pink" separate lane. They were totally dusted out a few years ago, when they were widening the canal road.

And now they have to go through it all again bummer...

I wish they would put a signal at at Mae Hia market intersection where everyone crosses the little bridge. Over the years many people have lost there lives crossing there.

[ARISTIDE]

I don't get the dotted pink lane. Tha'ts major bottle neck and there's no more space to do anything.

Looks good, I feel sorry for the people along the proposed "pink" separate lane. They were totally dusted out a few years ago, when they were widening the canal road.

And now they have to go through it all again bummer...

I wish they would put a signal at at Mae Hia market intersection where everyone crosses the little bridge. Over the years many people have lost there lives crossing there.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

I don't get the dotted pink lane. Tha'ts major bottle neck and there's no more space to do anything.

There is: That's the current Canal Road stretch between the Samoeng Road and the very Southern end of the Canal road at Namborluang. Currently that's a good road, but not separate lanes. What they will do is put in a similar road on teh other side of the Canal. That will make it effectively the same as what they already did with the rest of the Canal Road North of the Samoeng Rd intersection all the way to Mae Rim, with 2-3 lanes on either side of the canal.

[maewang99]

I'd like to know more about what will they do about the Samoeng Road intersection, it's quite bad at rush hours headed into Chiangmai as it is, when the project is completed there should be quite a problem there, really serious. I live out by Maewang and the flyover for this project over the Sanpatong-Maewang Road, just outside my village, is so huge it's almost looks like they are building a 2nd international airport, yet at Samoeng I see no work underway at all yet that intersection is two orders of magnitude more important than the Maewang crossroad.

[trainman34014]

My fear is that when the dual carriageway's are complete all the way around, that it will become a madman's raceway. Canal Road now is used as a racetrack at times around the many curves nearer to town and there have been countless accidents. Can imagine this new road being a runway for lunatics to show us their 'driving skills' !

[Joop50]

My fear is that when the dual carriageway's are complete all the way around, that it will become a madman's raceway. Canal Road now is used as a racetrack at times around the many curves nearer to town and there have been countless accidents. Can imagine this new road being a runway for lunatics to show us their 'driving skills' !

Yeah, the Thai cut the curves and pick a motosai or cyclist, I've seen it. Also very dangerous situations are the markets on the city side. When it is crowdy, only the lane which is not supposed to be used is available.

[jaideeguy]

Good news and bad news.......

The bad is that it will worsen traffic on Suthep rd and Huey Keaw will be more of a nightmare.

The good is that it will relieve some of the congestion on Hang Dong rd

Maybe they could make 2 more lands by paving over the canal.....and make things worse.

Wonder which politicians have bought land along the new route??

[Johpa]

The best news is that when returning from visiting the relatives up in the hills above Mae Wang I will no longer risk making the wrong left turn looking for the short cut to the canal road and end up lost for an hour in the fields northwest of Sanpatong.

[hellodolly]

My comment: yes this will lighten the traffic through Sanpatong and Hang Dong. However it will put a lot more traffic through the Canal Road, which likely means new bottle necks at the intersection with the Samoeng Road at Nong Khwai (unless there's going to be a flyover there) and perhaps -to a lesser extent- all other intersections on the Canal Road, of which there are quite a few: Ratchapruek Road, Middle Ring near Mae Hia Market and ultimately the Payom intersection with Suthep Road. The flip side of that of course is that this reduces load on a similar number of intersections on the Hang Dong road, potentially all the way to Airport Plaza.

It may also be good for new development along the Canal Road.

Looking at the map it looks to me like any one going past airport plaza would not be going to use the new bypass as it would be out of the way for them.

It would not be a help to people coming from the East and most of the South of the city and parts of the North. Other than take some of the traffic off the present routes.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

They could connect back to the Hand Dong road via the 121 (Outer Ring); that's under 2km / 2 minutes to be back on the Hang Dong road. (for people going to Makro, Big C or into town near Airport Plaza.) You spend more than 2 minutes stuck before the traffic lights in Hang Dong and (to a lesser extent) Sanpatong.

[Sparkles]

Whatever they decide there are going to be some massive traffic jams in the future.CM can't escape being a total bottle neck at end of the Canal Road going into town and there is really no solution apart from flyovers/tunnels.There was some talk a couple of years ago about resuming property to widen a whole host of roads around the old city,can't ever see that happening.Only positive is that new shopping centres opening up will help congestion around Airport Plaza and move the problem somewhere else.

Even today, and I am aware it was a public holiday for some ,in took 4 changes of lights to get through the Big C /Home Pro intersection at Hang Dong and that was heading south at lunchtime.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

We're relatively fortunate that the old town is protected from big development. Most people don't actually have to go downtown for anything; shopping malls: most of the big new ones are away from town on the Superhighway / rings. Government offices are mostly out in Mae Rim, on the Outer Ring. Hypermarkets: On or outside of the Superhighway.

With all the rings, any major new development will go into that direction.

The only Bangkok type 'mistake' really was Nimmanhaemin. Then again there needs to be an area with trendy shops, pubs and restaurants somewhere, so might as well be Nimmanhaemin. Think about it, without planning that could have been Thapae / Ratchadamnoen Rd.