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SILVER LINING:
COVER:
CHUAN INTERVIEW:
VIEW FROM WASHINGTON:
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ASIA | March 30, 1998 VOL. 151 NO. 12 |
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Bangkok's Silver Lining: Goodbye Gridlock
 oney may not be flowing much in thailand's capital these days, but something more unlikely is: traffic. Motorists like to joke that it took the International Monetary Fund to unclog Bangkok's notoriously jammed thoroughfares and, indeed, cars today make trips in 15 minutes that a year ago might have taken an hour.
Before the economy crashed last summer, Bangkok was famous for its round-the-clock gridlock. Stories of how people coped became urban lore. Thais bought custom-made vans equipped with TVs and microwave ovens. On the endless trips home after school and work, parents would serve family dinners, then the kids would do their homework and change into pajamas before finally arriving. One company did a booming business in plastic disposable toilets. Consumers could get just about anything, from McDonald's hamburgers to prescription medicine, delivered via motorbike. The solution for easing congestion turned out to be simple: economic catastrophe. Rising fuel costs, coupled with lost jobs and declining incomes, mean people are making fewer trips. About 20,000 cars have been repossessed, while new-car buying has dwindled from about 900 a day a year ago to just 300 now. Bus ridership is up; taxi trips are down. So many cabbies are having trouble making enough fares to cover gas and car rental that hundreds of taxis are sitting idle every day. Thinner wallets also mean people are spending less time in bars, restaurants, movie theaters and shopping malls. Instead, they're staying home. "It's much less jam-packed in the evenings," observes police Sgt. Maj. Prasert Suwankhanit. Says Chris Baker, a British national who has written a book about Thai politics: "Nobody is doing anything but watching TV." The government, much maligned in the past for botching up mass transit construction, deserves credit as well. New expressways have opened, and some of the construction that has blocked traffic lanes for years has been cleared. The good times may not last, however, at least for motorists. If traffic flow is in fact a reliable economic indicator, Thailand may be on the rebound. "The last few days," says taxi driver Boonlarb Srikam, "I've noticed the traffic getting busy again." Bring out those portable toilets. -By Tim Larimer. With reporting by Kim Gooi/Bangkok Photograph by PETER CHARLESWORTH-Saba for Time
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