Traffic congestion throughout Bangkok on the first day of schools
Some Bangkok schools were reopened Monday morning, resulting to thick traffic jams on main roads. The traffic was packed especially the parts in front of famous private schools in Sathorn area, which saw a line of cars as far as the Taksin Bridge.
Metropolitan Police therefore made haste to encourage parents to park at designated areas to drop their kids off, while a thousand traffic police officers were dispatched to facilitate commuters on the allschool opening on Wednesday (May 16). Deputy Superintendent 4 of Traffic Control Centre, Pol Lt Col Wannarong Wonglee, said the traffic volume yesterday was thicker than other days because many schools had reopened especially in front of Assumption College on Sathorn Road which saw the tail reaching Taksin Bridge and a Skhumvit Road's UTurn at the mount of Soi Sukhumvit 64. He urged motorists to avoid these two spots during rush hours. He also said city police had a policy to seriously tackle school term traffic jams and planned ahead of the school opening by contacting schools to ensure parents prepared their kids from home so they could quickly drop off their kids at schools. A ceremony to dispatch some 1,000 city officers would be held at 3pm to facilitate traffic flows when all schools are opened on Wednesday (May 16), he added. The city police's Traffic Control Centre yesterday afternoon reported that, during the morning rushhours yesterday, nearly all roads leading to inner Bangkok were heavily congested - including Lat Phrao, VibhavadiRangsit, Phaholyothin, Ratchadaphisek, Rama 9, Phetburi, Sukhumvit, Rama 4, Sathorn, expressways and roads from the Thon Buri side. The traffic flows slowly moved along but were particular bad in front of famous private schools such as the inbound Sathorn where located the Bangkok Christian College and Assumption College, the report said. With many using cars to send kids to schools, police's earlier instruction to use designated dropoff areas - about 200 to 300 meters away from the schools - received little cooperations from parents, the report said. Some parents even blocked the traffic to walk their kindergarteners or first graders - who were not yet familiar with schools - to classes, prompting officials to plead for cooperation and hand out leaflets on how to prepare kids for quick dropoff, the report said. However, the overall traffic control yielded a degree of satisfactory result, as many officers spread to key intersections and diligently accommodate flows, the report said, the traffic in the evening rushhours should be smoother, as the police meeting in the afternoon learned and sorted the problems found in the morning. The Nation
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