Midweek Rant: When, oh when will Bangkok be finished?

[webfact]

Midweek Rant: When, oh when will Bangkok be finished?

 

 

 

I know this may be asking a bit much for a Midweek Rant.

 

But can I please ask on behalf of those of us who have made Bangkok our home?

 

When will our City of Angels be finished?

 

You see I am not getting any younger and I am genuinely concerned that all of you beavering away to try and improve it will still be doing just that when I am passing through my local temple’s chimney.

 

On the way to another heavenly capital somewhere in the clouds that will hopefully have been long since completed.

 

It’s not that I am ungrateful for all the improvements since arriving in the 1980s.

 

For example, all those pipes you put in in Sukhumvit Road and elsewhere certainly helped with the flooding that used to stay 
festering on the ground from one month to the next.

 

The stores and the supermarkets have been a boon for my shopaholic wife – I don’t even blame you for my bank balance going down.

 

The sky train and the underground have been great, even the busses are a tad less smelly – it has all made the city so much better.

 

But everywhere I look the evidence is mounting up.

 

Nearly four decades down the line and it just seems as far away from finished as ever.

 

I’m not blaming you for the traffic per se. But was it really necessary to build about ten major rail projects all at the same time?

 

Yes, I know some of you wanted to return happiness to us after all those barricades and shouting but have you ever thought you might be overdoing it a little.

 

Might your pursuit of happiness on our behalf be a little overzealous?

 

Could you not have put a little store by the “P” word.

 

Progress? The Public? Prosperity?

 

No, no…the word I am thinking about is planning.

 

How nice it would have been if someone somewhere had had an idea to stagger all these projects, just to make life in the intervening years a little more bearable for the average Bangkokian.

 

We are, after all, the lifeblood of the nation… 40% of GDP doesn’t lie!

 

I mean I love riding a motorcycle on these wide boulevards.

 

I always leave the car at home to avoid murdering the wife and kids when stuck in bumper to bumper traffic.

 

But now we are all stuck on the bike – all four of us….there is nowhere for even two wheeled transport to move. Unless it’s three AM.

 

And all those signs saying 5,000 baht fines for riding on the sidewalks are scaring me into submission. Even if I know you really don’t mean it.

 

Perhaps you could just let up for a year or two. Do a “Hopewell” on a few of the new projects and open up some floor-space to traffic for a few months.

 

Just to show willing, you understand. Give a bit of respite to the weary.

 

And could you put some new signs in please to tell me where I am. There are so many new buildings around or being demolished that all my landmarks have gone. It’s a bit like when my local pub in England was shut down – I don’t know where I am anymore.

 

I thought I knew Bangkok now I am just as bewildered as the tourists off the plane who think it is all great fun. It just isn’t fair – I’ve paid my taxes, you see.

 

Rather like looking after grandchildren the tourists don’t mind – they can give Bangkok back at the end of their stay.

 

We have to live here. Day in day out.

 

Now I know it is true that much of Bangkok is so ugly that it needs to be torn down and replaced.

 

But how about coming up with a schedule – and sticking to it so that the residents know what is going on.

 

Some of us lucky ones might even be able to move out for a while so you can finish the relevant bit that impacts us the most.

 

We wouldn’t mind going somewhere dull like Hua Hin or Pattaya for a while if we knew that such a “prison sentence” had a reasonably chance of time off for good behavior.

 

Then we could get back to normal. And smile those famous Bangkok smiles.

 

I said it in the 1980s when it usually got a laugh.

 

Maybe some in the 90s thought it still worth a grin.

 

But by the noughties the joke was wearing decidedly thin.

 

What was that I said?

 

“I like Bangkok – but I’ll really love it when it’s finished”.

 

So please try and complete the job as soon as possible. For the sake of my love affair.

 

At least before the inevitable happens with my visit to the temple; and everybody else sinks beneath the encroaching waves of the Gulf.

By which time you’ll have to start all over again.

 

I’ll probably be looking down glad I’m not there for that.

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2017-05-10

[sebastion]

It will be finished when it sinks into the sea. Won't be long.

Sent from my EVA-L19 using Tapatalk

[fruitman]

Construction will never stop and always cause trafficcongestion.

 

I also get lost sometimes when my landmarks are gone or even when they put new advertisings on them.

 

Best would be to move the whole sukhumvit area to another side of the city before smashing it down and rebuild it. 

 

When buying a condo in sukhumvit there's always the chance a huge constructionproject will start right next to your home.

 

There will come another big mall next to Central Embassy and after that another will come untill the whole area is totally filled with highrise buildings.  They can't really plan that, it's just a case of which piece of land is for sale right now.

[DoctorG]

I realize that this article is just a bit of fun but is any city ever really "finished"?

[williamgeorgeallen]

i never figured what is to like about bangkok. each to their own i guess.

[NCC1701A]

So you are saying there is some sort of city beyond Soi Cowboy and Nana Plaza?

 

Weird.

Edited May 10, 2017 by NCC1701A

[Eric Loh]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Yes, I know some of you wanted to return happiness to us after all those barricades and shouting but have you ever thought you might be overdoing it a little.

I speculate 2 reasons why all the projects are cramped in this few years. Vanity and Greasy palms. The junta especially little P will like to remember in his legacy as the man who built the infrastructure. As for the greasy palm, pretty much self explanatory. 

[madmitch]

Perhaps the writer of the article should visit Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh, London, in fact any major city in the world and write a similar article about these cities. Ongoing city construction is a part of modern life.

[Orton Rd]

They are knocking down the Dusit Thani hotel soon, once the highest building in the city and less than 50 years old!

[01322521959]

It'll never be finished. Put a new pavement down
Dosh in pocket, dosh to contactor's. In a years time do it all again.

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[elgordo38]

1 hour ago, madmitch said:

Perhaps the writer of the article should visit Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh, London, in fact any major city in the world and write a similar article about these cities. Ongoing city construction is a part of modern life.

I think your right. Its to expensive to repair piece meal infrastructure so build anew. Most of the pipes that where laid well anywhere the year I was born must be shot. Thailand loves all that is new and glamorous. The market for second hand here is not like the west but then the quality is not either. Construction here and everywhere is like the ever expanding universe. Build it and they will come well maybe.

[elgordo38]

59 minutes ago, Orton Rd said:

They are knocking down the Dusit Thani hotel soon, once the highest building in the city and less than 50 years old!

Congratulations gives you bragging rights of sorts. You have stood longer. 

[lordblackader]

Grumpy old man piles his family of 4 onto a motorcycle but is worried about progress? He's another P for him: priorities. 

[Eric Loh]

2 hours ago, madmitch said:

Perhaps the writer of the article should visit Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh, London, in fact any major city in the world and write a similar article about these cities. Ongoing city construction is a part of modern life.

If we include information relating to the population density, it does aggravate the congestion issue more for Bangkok than rest of the cities mentioned. 

[Thaidream]

The construction will never stop and the traffic jams continue unless they really want to spend some money to stop them. A tunnel is needed at the Asoke/Sukhumvit junction to cause a constant flow of traffic instead of a traffic light.  Soi Cowboy and Nana Plaza are in their death throes soon to be replaced by another mall/hotel complex.  

Bangkok changes every few years as far as what is in vogue and what is not. It's been that way for 40 years and will continue as long as investment money is available and pours into Thailand.

[natway09]

Short answer,    never.

Long answer is,, I do not have time to tell you

It is a bit like the Sydney Harbour Bridge painting team.

Start one end,,,  15 months later,,,,, start again

ask the Beatles about "heaven"

[Fulwell53]

All the angry old men bagging the capital city of the country they have VOLUNTARILY migrated to.

Its dirty, congested, full of corrupt officials yada yada yada.

They still dont see the irony.

Mind the major cities of the usa and uk are great fine examples of cities free of congestion and building work.

Shangri la's the lot of them.

Now I understand ....the old boys are here as missionaries.

 

[Prbkk]

5 hours ago, Thaidream said:

The construction will never stop and the traffic jams continue unless they really want to spend some money to stop them. A tunnel is needed at the Asoke/Sukhumvit junction to cause a constant flow of traffic instead of a traffic light.  Soi Cowboy and Nana Plaza are in their death throes soon to be replaced by another mall/hotel complex.  

Bangkok changes every few years as far as what is in vogue and what is not. It's been that way for 40 years and will continue as long as investment money is available and pours into Thailand.

That's true about Asoke/Sukhumvit, it's bad now...but used to be even worse when water was about a foot deep, for months on end. There might have been fewer cars on the road but it used to take forever to get through there. 

In Nana, a new building is going up Cnr Sois 4/6 ( used to be Seven Seas Seafood Rest), looks like a hotel rather than a mall, although a hotel so close to Nana Plaza, as it currently is, would have a limited client base.