Crackdown on Bangkok street stalls as pedestrians vie for space

[SoiBiker]

I'd quite like to be able to walk down the street without it being an obstacle course, and I don't really give a shit if that fits into some idea of how you think the city should look.

this story has been wrote about for years! no action taken as of now. the stalls "rent" from someone and it will never change!

It's changed already. Stretches of Sukhumvit have been cleared of stalls. Asoke-montri, too. The torch market is about to be done away with.

[malt25]

I'd quite like to be able to walk down the street without it being an obstacle course, and I don't really give a shit if that fits into some idea of how you think the city should look.

You could always bash em with that infamous brolly of yours if they get in your way.

[NoshowJones]

In reality in many areas if you want to get somewhere by foot then walking in the road is the only viable option. Moving vendors to side streets seems a sensible option as people who want to shop can go there and leave the pavements for the purpose intended. The authorities should also clamp down on motor cycles who increasingly use pavements to avoid traffic.

Your last sentence, that has already been done, and it lasted about 24 hours.

[The manic]

Some people, cyclists, for example, want to have road use redefined to meet their needs but it's a bit rich when they want to control the sidewalk as well. This Asia:either get used to it or leave.

[NoshowJones]

I'd quite like to be able to walk down the street without it being an obstacle course, and I don't really give a shit if that fits into some idea of how you think the city should look.

Another sensilbe post, things are sure looking up SoiBiker.

[NoshowJones]

One has to bear in mind that these vendors are not purely targeting foreigners. Indeed, they are more selling to Thais and this has been a long term part of the culture.

To simply dismiss them takes away a lot of the cultural value that initially has impressed visitors, and has drawn people to the country. If Thailand ends with a cleaned-up capital, amongst other areas and cities, then I believe it is losing a great attraction. Why should BKK suddenly want to appear the same as the likes of purely clean cities of Germany or Norway, for example? Isn't it the 'quaintness' or almost 'cuteness' of olde world ways which attract, certainly Western, visitors and Thai visitors themselves?

I'm not for the motion of cleaning up the street sellers. I'd let them be, and promote attitude change towards what is a part of the culture. Nothing to do with education, politics nor TAT's aims. Night markets are a part of the ceremony of Thailand, in my humble opinion.

What is needed is a compromise, room for people to walk on the pavements, and places for vendors, but again, the people who collect from the vendors have to get their share. TiT.

[PungShoeWrote]

How and the hell can any of these vendors make 1 bhat. They're too busy staring at their GD zombie phones to see my fat ars looking at their worthless junk.!!!

Even the so called Tour Guides that hang around Nana are playing Candy Crunch even while taking the root...

[The manic]

Anal retentive foreigners and an authoritarian govenment yet again impose on poor Thai people. Why are you in Asia? Why are you on Bangkok?

[NoshowJones]

The people claiming street stalls selling crappy T-shirts, sex toys, copy CD's, copy watches, knives, underpants and sunglasses somehow makes Thailand a vibrant place are comical.

Footpaths are called footpaths for a reason.

If you want cheap crap, go to Chatuchak on the weekend, otherwise, let me walk down the street without having to dodge idiots stopping to buy 50baht crap.

Chatuchak market is always full of tourists, and is not always cheap, I have tested some of them with their prices, and have sometimes found that they are dearer than the shops for the same items. Like I said, always full of tourists, think about it.

[bkkjames]

One has to bear in mind that these vendors are not purely targeting foreigners. Indeed, they are more selling to Thais and this has been a long term part of the culture.

To simply dismiss them takes away a lot of the cultural value that initially has impressed visitors, and has drawn people to the country. If Thailand ends with a cleaned-up capital, amongst other areas and cities, then I believe it is losing a great attraction. Why should BKK suddenly want to appear the same as the likes of purely clean cities of Germany or Norway, for example? Isn't it the 'quaintness' or almost 'cuteness' of olde world ways which attract, certainly Western, visitors and Thai visitors themselves?

I'm not for the motion of cleaning up the street sellers. I'd let them be, and promote attitude change towards what is a part of the culture. Nothing to do with education, politics nor TAT's aims. Night markets are a part of the ceremony of Thailand, in my humble opinion.

What is needed is a compromise, room for people to walk on the pavements, and places for vendors, but again, the people who collect from the vendors have to get their share. TiT.

Fine, then put a toll booth at every corner so people can have the privilege of walking on a sidewalk free of beggars, plastic crap and deep fried mystery meat. While we are clearing the sidewalks, let's also fine any group of ice coffee toting~ line chatting sheep crawling along 3 abreast...

[mommysboy]

Part of the charm.

[Anthony5]

In reality in many areas if you want to get somewhere by foot then walking in the road is the only viable option. Moving vendors to side streets seems a sensible option as people who want to shop can go there and leave the pavements for the purpose intended. The authorities should also clamp down on motor cycles who increasingly use pavements to avoid traffic.

Yeah good idea to move them to side streets to give pedestrians some space.

Hey wait.................side streets also have sidewalks and pedestrians.

As for the motorbikes using the pavements, that is actually allowed by law.

If you watch the video at the renewal of your driving license, you will see that motorbike are allowed to use the sidewalks if traffic flow is blocked.

[toenail]

True, the night food and shop stalls along the Bangkok side walks make Bangkok what it is. But put the sidewalk hogging vendors on side sois. People who live here like myself end up walking on the side of the street in order to avoid the fat farang blocking the 2 foot width pathway gawking at a T shirt to buy-- so frustrating when everyone is at a snail pace on a hot muggy night and you need to get somewhere a couple blocks away. I understand the food vendors setting up along the sidewalk as long as there is room. This offers reasonable priced food for the locals. Everyone needs to know that all these vendors pay a monthly rent to use up the space in front of a shop. Either it goes to some city official (police) or the store owner.

[NoshowJones]

At last, an article which never uses the wrong word - footpaths - and uses the right ones - pavements and sidewalks.

We call them footpaths here. American English or UK English.

Are footpaths not places for pedestrians to walk through parks etc, where there is no traffic, and the walkways at the side of the road are sidewalks for Americans and pavements for the British. Don't ask me about other countries.

[gigman]

To compromise on many cleaning issue is the key but to just "kill" one of the attraction of Asia is other thing..

Who says clean is beautiful ...??? .

Why are you coming to Thailand from other world which is in some most famous places even less clean then Bkk .

Try to see Dubai...clean artificial place where people on the streets looks like a ghosts in multi billionaire environment

Thailand is slowly loosing this image where many from other part of the world was coming to feel free.

Why should I go to Thailand from my place ...clean and "empty" full of rules and more rules which are doing more harm to people and families then good.

That's why I love Asia where human was the most important thing .

Asia always was different and that's her magic for anyone from outside.

That's why they culture was so strong but they are loosing their freedom like rest of the world is loosing.

I have in Australia the biggest beach in the world and probably most clean either hence why should I go to Thailand? but I do....still do.

Street vendors in Asia was by the centuries and for many generations it was not a problem but many was coming across the world just for this.

Problems is motorisation and bad planning..

Leave streets for human not the cars where often occupied only by one person.

The cars and bad planning is the problem not the human.. Just look how bad planning they applying in Phuket towards chairs on the beach . They rules are always like "one way street"

to lazy to compromise.

It is all about money ...who will spend money for cleaning. Humanity always needs a "cleaner' and partly nature is doing it.

Ruling people like to get the money but spend for cleaning ...?? no no.

In Kho Samet by the night restaurant vendors put all tables and lamps deep into the beach and that's magic for me and I never forget this feeling which I can not have in so clean Australia.

Don't forget Kho Samet is a national park.....

For me Bkk and their vendors are not a problem for me at all.

It is part of attractions I am coming for. It was always good place to walk long distances where I could stop and meet people.

If they can manage to walk on uneven footpath i can do it also ...NO PROBLEMO.....

That's why I am coming to Los from my so clean country and boring where people slowly become as machines guided by only rules like brainless.

Compromise compromise compromise .....

if you are still human.

[Anthony5]

True, the night food and shop stalls along the Bangkok side walks make Bangkok what it is. But put the sidewalk hogging vendors on side sois. People who live here like myself end up walking on the side of the street in order to avoid the fat farang blocking the 2 foot width pathway gawking at a T shirt to buy-- so frustrating when everyone is at a snail pace on a hot muggy night and you need to get somewhere a couple blocks away. I understand the food vendors setting up along the sidewalk as long as there is room. This offers reasonable priced food for the locals. Everyone needs to know that all these vendors pay a monthly rent to use up the space in front of a shop. Either it goes to some city official (police) or the store owner.

Vendors don't belong on a sidewalk, being it main street or side street, those sidewalks are for pedestrians.

There also doesn't need to be a food stall every 3 meters, if they pay rent anyway, it would be easy to have a place off the street every few kilometers where food vendors are grouped.

[The manic]

I love shopping at the stalls on Sukhumvit

It's crap during the day now they have been forcibly shut down by the army

[Commerce]

How and the hell can any of these vendors make 1 bhat. They're too busy staring at their GD zombie phones to see my fat ars looking at their worthless junk.!!!

Even the so called Tour Guides that hang around Nana are playing Candy Crunch even while taking the root...

I see you've spent a long time here, and don't cater to your own personal needs.

NOT!

[SoiBiker]

I love shopping at the stalls on Sukhumvit

It's crap during the day now they have been forcibly shut down by the army

I guess you have to go elsewhere for your knock off t shirts, dildos and fake Viagra now.

What a tragic repression of a unique culture.

[The manic]

You are not their boss leave them alone.If you don't like Thai life styles then go home.

[NoshowJones]

In reality in many areas if you want to get somewhere by foot then walking in the road is the only viable option. Moving vendors to side streets seems a sensible option as people who want to shop can go there and leave the pavements for the purpose intended. The authorities should also clamp down on motor cycles who increasingly use pavements to avoid traffic.

Yeah good idea to move them to side streets to give pedestrians some space.

Hey wait.................side streets also have sidewalks and pedestrians.

As for the motorbikes using the pavements, that is actually allowed by law.

If you watch the video at the renewal of your driving license, you will see that motorbike are allowed to use the sidewalks if traffic flow is blocked.

That may be true, notice the word 'blocked', not 'slow moving', but that does not mean blocked because of a red light, all the traffic is stopped then, 99.9% of them are useing the pavements only because they want to get to their destination quicker, and they are breaking the law.

[Keesters]

Anal retentive foreigners and an authoritarian govenment yet again impose on poor Thai people. Why are you in Asia? Why are you on Bangkok?

And why are you here? Lording over the Thai people insisting they stay in the 20th century instead of joining the 21st.

[Strangebrew]

I have mentioned maybe closing off least used side soi's and having vendors rent spots on the street it's self freeing up sidewalks for others on soi's and main roads vendors happy tourists happy city happy for extra cash to say plant shade trees along sidewalks.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

it would be a great help if both sides of the sidewalk were not lined with vendors and or seating for noodle vendors....

In most places, the BMA authorities could have come up with a simple and Solomonesque solution to the problem of inaccessible sidewalks:

As Granuaile noted, only allow vendors on either the inside or outside edge of the sidewalks, but NOT BOTH in the same place.

If they had ever promulgated that simple kind of rule, it would have solved the sidewalks problem in most areas along the major boulevards.

But instead, they banned the vendors entirely during the daytime, and then allow them on both the inside and outside sections of sidewalks in the evenings, once again making many areas virtually impassable.

Somehow, the BMA geniuses seem to have never thought about the inside or outside only rule, but not both.

Walking along Sukhumvit, for example, would be fine in most places in there was only one row of vendors, not two, lining the sidewalk.

Edited March 1, 2015 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[SunsetT]

Nahh. All this gives life to the city. Do we really want to see Bangkok turned into yet another bland, faceless capital city, with clean, well paved, streets, well dressed people, and starbux and KFC on every corner?

..........I agree as long as 2 way pedestrian traffic can walk through without being forced to walk on the road.

[SunsetT]

At least it keeps the motor bikes off the pavement/sidewalk!

[rmacee]

To all you statesiders ..we call them footpaths and pavements ..and we go on holidays not vacations ..

[Yann55]

Is Thailand destined to become another Singapore, clinically clean and utterly boring, with enough rules, regulations and red tape to strangle every bar girl in Big Mango? Millions of tourists and thousands of foreign residents will hope not. People flock to Thailand for what it is, not for what it may become if a bunch of puritanical and petty bureaucrats get their way.

The freewheeling lifestyle and teeming streets are part of what makes Thailand different to other destinations in South East Asia. These constant clampdowns on "unlawful" vendors, who in many cases are providing services holidaymakers and expats clearly enjoy, may well affect visitor numbers. Even worse, they are robbing many Thais of the means to support their families, with no Western-style welfare safety net to help them.

Didn't somebody once say that the road to hell is paved with the good intentions?

I totally agree with what you say about Thailand, but why is it that so many Westerners feel compelled to speak badly of Singapore on account of its cleanliness (to which they inevitably associate the adjective 'boring', like you did) ?

Singapore is... well, Singapore, not Bangkok or KL or HCMC. I personnally think it's a very interesting and beautiful city. The way it mixes high rise buildings with the Victorian style era, plus Chinese-style buildings and an Indian touch on top of it is remarkable and a pleasure for the eye.

It's also an incredibly green city and that in itself is a kind of miracle, compared to other urban centers of Asia.

Bangkok has its charms, and street vendors are one of them, but frankly it's mostly ugly, messy, dirty, congested, hot as hell and oppressive. The fact that Singapore is clean is part of its beauty. Why be negative about it ? As for the 'boring' aspect, I think you might want to check on the cultural life there. Concerts, plays, exhibitions, there are lots of things to see and do. High quality performances and events of all kinds. All year round. It's a Western-style city, yes, but to label it 'boring' is cliché, untrue, unfair and ... unpleasant, honestly.

Edited March 1, 2015 by Yann55

[Yann55]

To all you statesiders ..we call them footpaths and pavements ..and we go on holidays not vacations ..

I wonder if your 86 former posts were all as pompous as this one. Can't be bothered to check though. This is a Forum, not a classroom, dude. Lots of members are not native English speakers from England, how shocking is that ?

[Keesters]

In reality in many areas if you want to get somewhere by foot then walking in the road is the only viable option. Moving vendors to side streets seems a sensible option as people who want to shop can go there and leave the pavements for the purpose intended. The authorities should also clamp down on motor cycles who increasingly use pavements to avoid traffic.

Yeah good idea to move them to side streets to give pedestrians some space.

Hey wait.................side streets also have sidewalks and pedestrians.

As for the motorbikes using the pavements, that is actually allowed by law.

If you watch the video at the renewal of your driving license, you will see that motorbike are allowed to use the sidewalks if traffic flow is blocked.

That may be true, notice the word 'blocked', not 'slow moving', but that does not mean blocked because of a red light, all the traffic is stopped then, 99.9% of them are useing the pavements only because they want to get to their destination quicker, and they are breaking the law.

And where in that video does it say that parking of motorcycles on the sidewalk is allowed.