Highway Dept to request Bt11.8b to fund land appropriation for 3 motorway projects

[webfact]

Highway Department to request 11.8 billion baht to fund land appropriation for 3 motorway projects



BANGKOK, 26 Mar 2014, (NNT) - The Department of Highways has revealed a plan to request a budget of 5.9 billion baht to begin the construction of three motorways.

The budget, which is the first half of the 11.8 billion baht estimated total amount, would be used to procure the ownership of land for the infrastructure project which will run 196 kilometers between Bang Pa-in and Korat; 98 KMs linking Bang-Yai and Kanjanaburi and a distance of 38 KM between Pattaya and Maptaput.

According to Mr. Chatchawan Booncharoenkij, Director General of the Department, the first two motorway projects have completed the Environmental Impact Assessment tests, adding that the test would commence for the Pattaya - Maptaput motorway construction site once it gets the go-ahead from the Office of the National Environment Board.

He said his department would request the other 5.9 billion baht from next year’s budget to pay out the remaining cost. According to Mr. Chatchawan, land procurement for the three sites is expected to be completed within a year, estimating that the Bang Pa-in land would cost 6 billion baht, Bang-Yai - Kanjanaburi land would be priced at 4 billion baht and the land joining Pattaya and Maabtaput would cost 1.8 billion baht

The Director General estimated that the auction to choose the construction company for the three motorways is expected to be held at the end of next year, a year later than the department had targeted as the 2.2 Trillion baht loan bill has recently been scrapped.


-- NNT 2014-03-27

[webfact]

Highway pushes forward three motorway projects



BANGKOK: -- The Highways Department is seeking 5.9 billion baht for three new motorway projects after the 2-trillion-baht loan bill was derailed the Constitutional Court.

The three motorway projects are the motorways between Ayutthaya’s Bang Pa-in district and Nakhon Ratchasima, Nonthaburi’s Bang Yai district and Ratchaburi’s Ban Pong district, and Pattaya and Rayong’s Map Ta Phut.

Department director-general Chatchawan Bucharoenkit said the three motorway projects will continue though they face a one-year delay.

Mr Chatchawan said the department wants half of the 11.8-billion-baht cost of the three motorways as advance budget to acquire land for the projects.

Both the Ayutthaya-Nakhon Ratchasima and Nonthaburi-Ratchaburi projects have passed environmental impact assessments, he said.

The Constitutional Court ruled on March 13 that the borrowing bill breached the charter. Much of the funding in the bill was earmarked for transport infrastructure projects.

But the department can still ask the government to allocate funds for the work from ordinary annual budgets.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/highway-pushes-forward-three-motorway-projects/


-- Thai PBS 2014-03-27

[Mango Bob]

^{The elite has been buying up land for the last 10 years waiting for this to happen. Now the rich will get richer.}

[JoeThePoster]

Yup, motor show is in town.

[Luk Mhee]

I don’t think that any capital government spending should be done at this stage, at least not until the political system has some direction.

Besides this, why build more highways that cannot be maintained or patrolled properly! Why not upgrade the existing infrastructure as it is at the moment?

[Local Drunk]

^{The elite has been buying up land for the last 10 years waiting for this to happen. Now the rich will get richer.}

How do you know that it was the elite bought this land and not just a bunch of greedy upstarts with a lot of political influence? Your point is valid up to a point; However, you're not asking the important questions. The who, what, when, where, why and how of it all.

Now consider a high speed train from Bangkok to almost nowhere with an almost unlimited budget and absolutely no accountability for where the funds would have gone. Think further: Who's the head honcho in those rice fields up there where such an extravagance would be built. Consider still: Who proposed and tried to pass such a bill? I'd say the greedy upstarts with a lot of political influence.

You'd be well served to drop the term "elite" from your vocabulary. You can't define it and you don't know what it means.

[ChrisY1]

I don’t think that any capital government spending should be done at this stage, at least not until the political system has some direction.

Besides this, why build more highways that cannot be maintained or patrolled properly! Why not upgrade the existing infrastructure as it is at the moment?

I really can't see any capitol works being approved and funded while the situation remains as it is.....

[Mango Bob]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

^{The elite has been buying up land for the last 10 years waiting for this to happen. Now the rich will get richer.}

How do you know that it was the elite bought this land and not just a bunch of greedy upstarts with a lot of political influence? Your point is valid up to a point; However, you're not asking the important questions. The who, what, when, where, why and how of it all.

Now consider a high speed train from Bangkok to almost nowhere with an almost unlimited budget and absolutely no accountability for where the funds would have gone. Think further: Who's the head honcho in those rice fields up there where such an extravagance would be built. Consider still: Who proposed and tried to pass such a bill? I'd say the greedy upstarts with a lot of political influence.

You'd be well served to drop the term "elite" from your vocabulary. You can't define it and you don't know what it means.

I will ignore your reply because you don't know me so please don't try to analysis me.

[Tomtomtom69]

I don’t think that any capital government spending should be done at this stage, at least not until the political system has some direction.

Besides this, why build more highways that cannot be maintained or patrolled properly! Why not upgrade the existing infrastructure as it is at the moment?

These motorways/expressways are long overdue! I remember reading about these projects as well as motorway projects to Chiang Mai, Mae Sai? (I think), Nong Khai (to link up with Vientiane) and Sadao (to link up with the Malaysian north-south expressway that starts at the Thai border) back in 2003! Yes, that's right, 2003 and so far almost no progress has been made at all since then. These 3 projects are thus a far cry from what was originally planned, but starting construction late is better than never.

How do you plan to better "maintain" existing infrastructure? By adding one more lane on various highways as some sort of band-aid solution? That doesn't solve the problem and only makes commuting more dangerous as long distance and local traffic continues to mix, with potentially tragic consequences. Consider the example of the Bang Pa-In to Nakorn Sawan highway. It's 4 lanes each way (up from 2 about 10 years ago) to north of Ayutthaya and then 3 lanes and a generous shoulder from there all the way to Nakorn Sawan (previously 2 lanes each way). Local motorcycles have to risk their lives each time they want to perform a u-turn, then you have a large number riding the wrong way, precarious u-turns being performed, buses speeding through in the right lane and trucks making dangerous overtaking maneuvers. On the motorways that are currently in operation (there are only 2), motorcycles are banned, u-turns don't exist, instead you have exits and the occasional u-turn bridge (only on the Bangkok-Chonburi motorway) and the road is of a decent standard (though they do need to do something about some of the approaches to the bridges as it can get quite bumpy driving over them, even when you're doing just 100km/h, which is 20km/h below the speed limit).

Additionally, the amount of traffic using the major highways out of Bangkok is too much for those roads to handle - what Thailand desperately needs are more dedicated, at-grade motorways/expressways that separate long distance from local commuter traffic. Thailand's infrastructure is actually pretty good, even if it's deficient in a number of areas. But if China can build expressways linking up all parts of the country, not to mention Malaysia's two decent expressways (the north-south Lebaraya and the east-west link), I don't see why Thailand can't do the same.

Edited March 27, 2014 by Tomtomtom69

[SOTIRIOS]

....will these scum ever stop....or be stopped....???

[BrooklynNY]

After having read the title, I see the word "Corruption". Their days are numbered.

[MickGC]

Road infrastructure is crucial to a nations development. Both sides of the fence agree with this. Before you comment, remove your yellow/red glasses.

[plachon]

Road infrastructure is crucial to a nations development. Both sides of the fence agree with this. Before you comment, remove your yellow/red glasses.

A meaningless statement on your part. I doubt anyone is denying that road building is an important aspect of a nation's development path. But, how "crucial" is it to increase road width from 4 lane to 6 lane to 8 lane highways, often in locations where the roads are not fully utilised at present? Then there is the issue of quality? If roads are being built that crumble and crack-up in 2-3 years (sometimes less), again how is this a "crucial" part of Thailand's development? This is not a matter of lack of technical knowledge, budget or ability, but purely revolves around deep and widespread corruption in said Highways Department and the political establishment, which needs to be exposed by the Thai people themselves (especially those that pay tax, rather than evade it or hide income in offshore bank accounts) and made more accountable to the nation. There is also the question of need, in an increasingly oil constrained society and likelihood that private vehicle transportation will decline in future decades.

[MickGC]

Road infrastructure is crucial to a nations development. Both sides of the fence agree with this. Before you comment, remove your yellow/red glasses.

A meaningless statement on your part. I doubt anyone is denying that road building is an important aspect of a nation's development path. But, how "crucial" is it to increase road width from 4 lane to 6 lane to 8 lane highways, often in locations where the roads are not fully utilised at present? Then there is the issue of quality? If roads are being built that crumble and crack-up in 2-3 years (sometimes less), again how is this a "crucial" part of Thailand's development? This is not a matter of lack of technical knowledge, budget or ability, but purely revolves around deep and widespread corruption in said Highways Department and the political establishment, which needs to be exposed by the Thai people themselves (especially those that pay tax, rather than evade it or hide income in offshore bank accounts) and made more accountable to the nation. There is also the question of need, in an increasingly oil constrained society and likelihood that private vehicle transportation will decline in future decades.

Ok. You are bringing corruption/politics into the equation. I was trying to leave that out and talk purely from the engineering/development side of things of which I am closely associated with. To quote yourself "in an increasingly oil constrained society and likelihood that private vehicle transportation will decline in future decades" True, but not in your or my lifetime. In the meantime, how do you think all of the furniture in your home arrived? Not by bicycle I'm guessing. Another quote "increase road width from 4 lane to 6 lane to 8 lane highways" Nobody is suggesting that. It's all about improving the existing infrastructure to cater for increasing industrial production. Need to get the goods from point A to Point B efficiently.

[plachon]

Road infrastructure is crucial to a nations development. Both sides of the fence agree with this. Before you comment, remove your yellow/red glasses.

A meaningless statement on your part. I doubt anyone is denying that road building is an important aspect of a nation's development path. But, how "crucial" is it to increase road width from 4 lane to 6 lane to 8 lane highways, often in locations where the roads are not fully utilised at present? Then there is the issue of quality? If roads are being built that crumble and crack-up in 2-3 years (sometimes less), again how is this a "crucial" part of Thailand's development? This is not a matter of lack of technical knowledge, budget or ability, but purely revolves around deep and widespread corruption in said Highways Department and the political establishment, which needs to be exposed by the Thai people themselves (especially those that pay tax, rather than evade it or hide income in offshore bank accounts) and made more accountable to the nation. There is also the question of need, in an increasingly oil constrained society and likelihood that private vehicle transportation will decline in future decades.

Ok. You are bringing corruption/politics into the equation. I was trying to leave that out and talk purely from the engineering/development side of things of which I am closely associated with. To quote yourself "in an increasingly oil constrained society and likelihood that private vehicle transportation will decline in future decades" True, but not in your or my lifetime. In the meantime, how do you think all of the furniture in your home arrived? Not by bicycle I'm guessing. Another quote "increase road width from 4 lane to 6 lane to 8 lane highways" Nobody is suggesting that. It's all about improving the existing infrastructure to cater for increasing industrial production. Need to get the goods from point A to Point B efficiently.

Unless you are a naive neophyte engineer who has never visited Thailand for more than brief tourism, how can you not bring corruption/politics into the equation when discussing transport planning and construction in the nation?? And the news piece is all about increasing numbers of lanes of traffic and capacity on already existing highways in case you'd missed it. You also fail to address my point about quality of construction being a crucial issue over quantity of road. As an engineer, don't you think that this is where most development effort needs to be concentrated at the moment, rather than just duplicating already poorly constructed roads which offer the taxpayer appalling value for money? Increasing industrial production, as you mention it, is also dependent on cheap oil, and as I pointed out, that era is coming to an end in the foreseeable future and definitely within my lifetime. Thus, Thailand will see decreasing road journeys in the next few decades, as road transportation becomes increasingly more expensive and the existing infrastructure starts to crumble and becomes increasingly expensive to repair and maintain (unless the country starts to concentrate on quality roads, as already indicated). Far better to concentrate most future investment on railways, but again, that is subject to the same constraint of politics/corruption mitigating against a good deal for the country.

The writing was on the wall for Thailand's imminent industrial decline when it declared it wanted Rayong-Chonburi to become "the Detroit of the East".