Bangkok’s New Road: Solving Gridlock or Fueling Future Congestion?
Congestion isn’t just about too many cars; it’s about the stories we tell ourselves about progress, the choices we elevate as inevitable, and the power structures that solidify those narratives in concrete. It’s a battle fought on maps, in zoning meetings, and ultimately, in the daily calculus of who gets to move freely and who remains stuck in place. The grand opening of Bangkok’s new connector road between Vibhavadi-Rangsit and Phahon Yothin, reported by Khaosod, isn’t just a road; it’s an argument. An argument about how cities grow, who they serve, and what futures we are building — or foreclosing.
This road, connecting key arteries like Vibhavadi-Rangsit, Phahon Yothin, and others, aims to alleviate bottlenecks around Don Mueang airport. The premise is familiar, almost ritualistic: pour more concrete to solve a problem partly caused by… insufficient concrete pouring. The project also emphasizes multi-modal integration, linking the new road to expressways, highways, and the BTS and Red Line electric train services. It’s a nod to optionality, a whisper of alternatives in a city choked by fumes.
But will it work? Or, more precisely, for whom will it work, and for how long? Infrastructure projects, particularly road projects, often operate on a silent, rarely questioned assumption: that demand is fixed. Build it, and they will come — and keep coming, in roughly predictable numbers. Yet induced demand, a concept still stubbornly resisted by many planners, tells a different story. As Anthony Downs argued decades ago, and as countless cities have since demonstrated, improved roadways can actually increase congestion, incentivizing more driving until the new capacity is absorbed, and the old problems return, perhaps even amplified. The “solution” then becomes another layer of asphalt, another cycle of hope and disappointment.
Bangkok, like many rapidly urbanizing cities in Southeast Asia, is a palimpsest of transportation policies, etched and re-etched with conflicting visions. In the late 20th century, the allure of the automobile — fueled by Western ideals of individual freedom and economic prosperity — fundamentally reshaped the city. Between 1970 and 1990, car ownership in Bangkok exploded, rising by over 400%, while investment in public transit lagged far behind. This created sprawling suburbs, cemented car dependence, and, predictably, birthed the epic gridlock that defines the Bangkok experience. These choices aren’t just lines on a map; they are encoded in the built environment, in the daily routines, in the very air of the city.
The new connector attempts to ameliorate these historical shortsightednesses, but it’s treating a symptom, not the disease. Consider land use. As Professor Edward Glaeser of Harvard has tirelessly argued, density is destiny. Encouraging greater density around existing and planned transit corridors in Bangkok would fundamentally alter travel patterns, making public transit a more viable, even desirable, option for a larger segment of the population. Sprawl leads to automobile usage. And reversing sprawl requires more than just building new roads; it requires rethinking the very fabric of the city.
City officials expect the new route to distribute traffic more evenly across existing road networks, reducing density on primary thoroughfares that have experienced chronic congestion, particularly during peak hours.
This is a reasonable expectation, perhaps even a likely outcome — in the short term. But it’s also a deeply limited vision. It focuses on easing the immediate pressure without addressing the underlying forces that generate it. Bangkok’s urban planners must think less like civil engineers and more like orchestrators of urban possibility, designing a city where alternatives to driving are not just readily available and affordable, but actively preferred. Congestion is a symptom, yes, but it’s a symptom of a deeper affliction: a system, both physical and cultural, that prioritizes the private automobile above all other forms of mobility, above community, above even breathable air. Building another road, in the end, is often treating the fever without addressing the infection. And in doing so, we risk reinforcing the very systems that made Bangkok’s traffic so legendary in the first place.
