Imagine Bangkok 2016: Better city, less life?
By Sasiwan Mokkhasen
Staff Reporter


Bangkok from a bird’s eye view in a 2011 photo. Photo: digitalpimp./ flickr

BANGKOK — Each New Year comes with new expectations, and Bangkok always amazes us in some way. A lot of change happened during 2015 and, little by little, the City of Angels was gradually transformed.

What will Bangkok look like in 2016? How will the city change? We asked some experts to contribute their thoughts, to help us better imagine how our beloved city will alter in the next twelve months.

More options, less cards, same price

When the Mangmoom (spider) card comes into effect in August, passengers can finally carry only one integrated piece of plastic for both the BTS and MRT.

With the Purple Line finally added to the minimal skytrain network in the same month, suburban Bangkok and Nonthaburi will finally gain the direct access to the heart of the city (though you still have to depend on the bus to travel from Tao Poon to Bang Sue station because they will not be physically linked yet by then).

With four more routes of mass rapid transit due to come to auction, Bangkokians can hope for the day that public transport networks will eventually cover every corner of the city.

Full story: http://www.khaosodenglish.com/detail.php?newsid=1451814477&typecate=06&section=

-- Khaosod English 2016-01-04

Bangkok has been my home since I was a teenager and I am now well into my fifties. Yes, i adore this city and still see it as vibrant, ever chsnging and exciting. It is good to see the improvements to the BTS system, one line of which will one day be running at the end of my soi. But I would love to see the klongs cleaned out and urgraded with viable public transport. So many are so dirty and ininviting. If they were clean they could attract klong-side eating places that would breathe further life into the city. As mentioned in the article, the klongs are an infrastructure already in place but woefully ignored for too long.