[sustran] Re: The Bangkok car free day - area - Sunday - maybe...

[Marcus Wigan]

carlos

these capacity issues are still very real in 
Bangkok, but I wonder if you might at least 
consider a slight variation?

if one or two routes could be given PTW / bicycle 
priority for say an hour or couple o f hours, 
that could make th e point well (and perhaps 
limit PTW access to those with 2 people on 
broad); this would at east make the point well 
with participation, even i f it had to be done on 
sunday.

A back up survey could be asking a sample of as 
to how people would go if they could have 
responded, or what would be required for them to 
be able to..

with judicious pr this combination could be used 
in a number of ways to make th e car 
free/pollution reduction points pretty well.
It just seems a shame not to do the activity in some form at least

marcus Wigan
melbourne


At 11:14 AM +0700 7/7/2005, Carlos F. Pardo wrote:
>Dear all,
>
>Thank you for your suggestions (on and off list) 
>to the question I asked. As it seems, there are 
>many opinions regarding this. Nonetheless, one 
>of the strongest points that was made was the 
>fact that Bangkok's current transport situation 
>would make it difficult to implement "full" 
>car-free day, since accesibility has not yet 
>been solved to a point where anybody who 
>normally uses a car, motorcycle or tuk tuk can 
>take a bus, BTS or MRTA. Based on this fact, it 
>would not only be counterproductive to ban 
>motorcyles or tuk tuks, it would also be so to 
>ban cars! A car-free day in Bangkok would just 
>produce a highly inaccesible city for most, and 
>an annoying experience rather than a pleasant 
>one.
>
>However, some of you also made suggestions to 
>use other options. For example, Bangkok has a 
>couple of "car-free areas" which are supposedly 
>closed for cars, but they are really not very 
>strictly enforced (e.g. Khao San Road). These 
>streets' enforcement to become a real car-free 
>area is a better choice of awareness raising. 
>This project can be developed easily thanks to 
>the help of a study by Michael King to the GTZ 
>SUTP project and the Bangkok Metropolitan 
>Authority in 2004.
>
>Also, another initiative that was suggested was 
>a car-free Sunday, like the one that Bogotá has 
>had since 1974 and Quito for two years now. 
>Actually, few people know that Bangkok did have 
>one of these initiatives along Silom Road some 
>years ago. Though this development decayed and 
>is currently not working, the fact that it 
>existed can make it also more probable to 
>reactivate.
>
>Finally, there are alternative initiatives that 
>can complement these measures. One of them is 
>doing specific activities with children where 
>they would give their opinion about cars, 
>pollution, Bangkok's situation, etc. Their 
>verbatims, drawings and other products would be 
>diffused through media to show how they react to 
>the existing traffic congestion. Many other 
>variants and similar activities can be developed 
>easily.
>
>In conclusion, I would like to thank you all for 
>your comments and arguments. They have proven 
>very useful in deciding wether or not it would 
>be coherent to develop a car free day this year, 
>or if the previously described activities would 
>permit a succesful car-free day in the future.
>
>Thanks for your help. More comments and questions are highly welcome.
>
>
>Carlos F. Pardo
>Project Coordinator
>GTZ Sustainable Urban Transport Project (SUTP)
>Room 0942, Transport Division, UN-ESCAP
>ESCAP UN Building
>Rajadamnern Nok Rd.
>Bangkok 10200, Thailand
>Tel: +66 (0) 2 - 288 2576
>Fax: +66 (0) 2 - 280 6042
>Mobile: +66 (0) 1 - 772 4727
>e-mail: <mailto:carlos.pardo at sutp.org>carlos.pardo at sutp.org
>Website: <http://www.sutp.org/>www.sutp.org
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