Parts of Second Road again will allow two-way traffic, but only during the upcoming Pattaya Music Festival weekends.
Pattaya traffic police inspector Pol. Lt. Col. Aruth Sapanon and municipal police chief Pol. Maj. Jeerawat Sukontasub observed Feb. 17 as a test of two-way traffic on Second Road from Central Road to the Dolphin Roundabout was conducted.
All was said to go well and the two-way plan will be used on weekends in March when music festival beachside stages at Soi 4 and Central roads will force the closure of Beach Road.
Second Road was entirely closed to two-way traffic in 2002 when the Central-North roads section was turned one-way. Since then, two-way traffic on Second Road has been used only in extraordinary circumstances. Until now, the music festival rarely has rated as “extraordinary”.
In 2011, two-way Second Road traffic was allowed for the Pattaya International Music Festival, the much-larger predecessor of the current concert series.
In 2016, military-appointed city leaders considered – and then shelved – a plan to revert all of Second Road to two-way.
But repeated weekends of city gridlock during previous music festivals finally persuaded city officials that closing Pattaya’s main north-south artery without a proper detour wasn’t a great idea.
