Editor;
With the increase in traffic due to the flooding in Bangkok, Sukhumvit and throughout Pattaya has been a nightmare particularly if you are driving a car. I have written before criticizing the method of directing traffic used by the police here in Pattaya. I was under the assumption that they are there to help but it seems something is missing as they seem to making a mountain out a mole hill.
I doubt it would happen but maybe someone in charge or the person who actually made the decision the last two weekends as to how they come to think closing Siam Country Club Road at Sukhumvit would actually make the traffic flow better?
By closing Siam Country Club Road at Sukhumvit, this is actually what you are doing. You force vehicles to turn left only at Siam flooding Sukhumvit, now the vehicles must contend with vehicles coming out of Nernplabwan. Now you have vehicles from Siam and Nernplabwan creating a bottleneck at Pattaya Klang since they need to turn around to head back north down Sukhumvit since Siam Country Club Road is closed off to turning into Sukhumvit. By doing this the police actually created a traffic jam that didn’t exist earlier!
Also, the closure of Pattaya Klang and Second Road requires vehicles that want to travel up to Sukhumvit, must now travel up to the Dolphin circle to Pattaya Nua to get to Sukhumvit which now creates a traffic backlog on Pattaya Nua and once across Sukhumvit another backlog on Sukhumvit until you get past Pattaya Klang.
This coming weekend do us all a favor and shorten the signal lights and stop giving preference to Sukhumvit traffic at the junction of Pattaya Klang and Siam Country Club Road to no longer than 45 seconds. If you need to come out of your air condition booth do so only to stop vehicles from running the red light and blocking intersections. That is the solution and not closing the intersection so that vehicles can go around and around only to come back to the same point. Give it a try you might find out it is that simple, otherwise stay in your aircon booth. Instead of being the solution you are the problem!
Jeff Chumuchi
