Bangkok sky train a cool respite from traffic
Yogita Tahilramani, The Jakarta Post, Bangkok
Big cities in Asia -- namely Jakarta, New Delhi and Bangkok -- are notorious for their high levels of traffic congestion. The effectiveness of public transport reflects how good or bad traffic management is in those cities.
Unlike Jakarta, which is struggling to build a busway as an alternative to overcome bad congestion, Bangkok has installed the air-conditioned Bangkok Transit System (BTS), an elevated rail system that operates above its commercial district.
When tourists want to go shopping in downtown Bangkok, even if it means going to three or four different malls in a limited period of time, they can easily get there using the sky train.
For only 100 baht (US$2.85), a passenger can have unlimited rides all day until midnight, which means that even when the malls have closed, you can still easily access the infamous Patpong area when it is in full swing for nightlife and clubbing.
During the day, tourists can watch the latest movie at the Discovery Center in Siam Square, and a small walk away, they can shop at the Mahboonkrong (MBK) center, which literally houses thousands of bargain stalls in its seven stories.
MBK is located at the National Stadium sky train station - only one stop by BTS from Siam station.
If one wants to buy something to read, just alight at Phrom Phong station for the Emporium shopping mall. It houses the Kinokuniya bookstore, which carries a substantial amount of great reading material.
Should you have a taste for pottery, arts, crafts and various wildlife, visit the Chatuchak weekend market by alighting at Saphan Khwai station. In the late evening, get off at Sala Daeng station, which leads straight to Patpong.
People might get confused at first with the automated ticketing machines but attendants are always around to help out.
The sky train rides are not only traffic-free, they are air- conditioned, clean and they zoom around town. No eating, drinking and smoking is allowed in the rot fai fah, which is Thai for the sky train.
The sky train began operating in December 1999. It is an extremely time-efficient way of traveling around Bangkok, when you consider that 82 percent of daily trips in the city are made by cars, buses, motorcycles or taxis.
The BTS's central station is at Siam square and has two separate lines: the 17 kilometer-Sukhumvit line, which stretches from Sukhumvit Soi 81 to Mo Chit, and the 6.5 kilometer-Silom line from the National Stadium down south to Saphan Taksin along Silom and Sathorn road.
Fares cost between 10 baht and 40 baht for each passenger depending on the distance. This is about half the cost of a taxi.
All BTS signs and announcements are in English as well as Thai. There is no timetable but the trains go every three minutes or so, daily from 6 a.m. to midnight.
The disadvantages are the limited areas it goes to at present, particularly since there is no station anywhere near the airport, Bangkok's exquisite Wat Phrae Keo Buddhist Temple and the Grand Palace, for instance. The train tracks themselves are humongous slabs of concrete about 15 meters up in the air.
The 23.5-kilometer sky train system is operated by Bangkok Mass Transit System Plc. (BTSC), which received a 30-year concession from the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) to run its elevated trains, according to a report by The Bangkok Post.
BTSC awarded construction and civil work worth US$670 million to Italian-Thai Development Plc., and the electrical system contract worth $650 million went to Munich-based Siemens AG.
This was how the consortium, comprising of both companies, had to build the transit system, which is entirely elevated. The system's two inter-connected lines have a carrying capacity of about 50,000 passengers per hour in each direction. The estimated cost of the project was $1.67 billion.
The 1999 report stated that when the project began, the company had expected 600,000 trips a day to cover its costs, but it achieved a record 200,000 trips on the first day of its official service.
It praised the sky train system, since people needed to spend "only a few minutes to travel between two places in the central business district, faster than by bus, private car or taxi".
It further stated that Bangkok's landscape was expected to change dramatically in the near future, as middle-income earners, were forecasted to move closer to sky train stations because of its convenience.
"The people of Bangkok need time to change their habits and forget their obsession with private transport and imported luxury vehicles. When this happens the root of the traffic problem will be cured and the cost of wasted man-hours and gasoline -- estimated at between 50 billion to 100 billion baht a year -- will be reduced and a better quality of life will emerge," the report stated.